SOCI 1001 Study Guide - Final Guide: Feminist Theory, Operationalization, Scale-Invariant Feature Transform
Document Summary
Sociologists use scientific methods to test their ideas, thus increasing the validity of the results. Suicide appears to be a supremely antisocial and non-social act. Emile durkheim demonstrated that suicide is more than just an individual act of desperation that results from a psychological disorder. Durkheim showed suicide rate are strongly influenced by social forces. Examining the association between rates of psychological disorder causes suicide is supported only if suicide rates tend to be high where rates of psychological disorder are high, and low where rates of psychological disorder are low. He discovered for example that there were slightly more women in insane asylums as men, but there were four male suicides for every female suicide. Clearly suicide rates and rates of psychological disorder did not vary directly. According to durkheim, the more beliefs and values a group"s members share, the more frequently and intensely they interact, the more social solidarity the group has.
