Men and suicide: A cultural scripts perspective

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Department of Sociology Lecture

A dominant idea in professional and popular discourse is that men’s suicidal behavior is the same everywhere in terms of triggers, motives and outcomes. A prevailing belief about triggers is that men’s suicidality is driven by public life (eg, employment) problems - in contrast to women’s suicidality, which is believed to be caused by private-life (e.g., close relationship) problems.

In this presentation Silvia challenges, based on evidence from her research and beyond, dominant myths of male suicidality and propose new ways to understand it. She starts with a review of the often-overlooked variability in triggers, motives and outcomes of men’s suicidality, with examples across communities and countries. For example, she presents evidence suggesting that men’s behavior in their private lives matters in their suicide likelihood - specifically, evidence from a multinational study that men’s suicide rates are lower in countries where men do more family care work.

Next, Silvia describes cultural-scripts-of-suicidality theory and discuss how taking a cultural-scripts perspective helps making sense of male suicidality across communities and countries, and by intersectionalities of, for example, age.

Her presentation ends with examples of how taking a cultural-scripts perspective on male suicidality stimulates new ideas for its prevention. 

Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash

About the speaker

Silvia Sara Canetto, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University, USA, with graduate degrees from Italy, Israel, and the USA. Canetto is widely recognized for having started the field of men, masculinities and suicidality. Her most cited article The gender paradox in suicide was the first to name as a paradox men’s high mortality by suicide though men have low rates of nonfatal suicidal behavior. Canetto has received national and international recognition for her innovative suicide research, including the American Association of Suicidology’s Dublin Award.