So, is it your point that whether these features save lives or not is not an empirical question? If it is an empirical question, how might it be tested? I ask only because this would be an interesting, somewhat nonintuitive, example to include in my Research Methods discussion of questions not open to empirical test.
Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of Psychology Box 3055 John Brown University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [email protected] (479)524-7295 http://tinyurl.com/DrFroman From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, July 19, 2010 10:32 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Bloor street bridge suicide study Lilienfeld, Scott O wrote: What about Chris Green's point that the barriers may indeed decrease suicides at the bridges themselves and perhaps even nearby bridges, but that people who were going to jump probably end up killing themselves through other means.... If the view that 'they'll just go elsewhere to die by suicide' has any merit whatsoever, one would expect at least half of those restrained to do so. But the actual figure is nowhere close to that. Approximately 95 percent of those who were restrained either were still alive at the time of the study or had died of natural causes" (p. 151). But, again, this is a dataset specially selected to confirm the hypothesis. These people were near to jumping (but, note, we don't know if they would have actually become jumpers. There are people who contemplated jumping at the site, but then don't go through with it. We have no idea how many of these people "restrained by police" would have actually jumped). Once barriers are erected, and the fact is widely publicized, then people who might have jumped before aren't ever going to be included in the number of (attempted) jumping suicides. There is simply no way to know how many of the non-jumping suicides after barriers are erected would have become jumping suicides if the means had been still easily available (much less, how many people who never actually attempted suicide by any means would have committed suicide by jumping if the barriers were not in place). (Looking at overall suicide rates before and after might be a start, but the numbers of jumpers are so small to begin, and confounding variable from year to year so difficult to control, with that it is nearly impossible to show a significant change.) What we have (IMHO) here are a bunch of people (some of them otherwise skilled professional researchers) who have become convinced a priori that barriers "work," and then go looking for confirmation of the "fact." As we here all know, confirmation bias is a terrible way to ascertain truth. Instead, what we seem to have is a Great Public Show of Concern -- we build something enormous and expensive that visibly represents our concern, we make a show of sacrificing a (usually) well-beloved, highly visible feature of the city -- even though doing so doesn't effectively redress the phenomenon of our concern. It is, in a phrase, superstitious behavior, not far removed (I'm afraid) from sacrificing animals or doing rain dances. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=3675 or send a blank email to leave-3675-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
