| QUOTE (coastman @ 10-Oct-2007, 01:07 PM) |
| Nuts!!!!! |
Quite possibly. I'm just reporting what I found.
| Printable Version of Topic
Click here to view this topic in its original format |
| Celtic Radio Community > General Discussion > Effect Of Country Music On Suicide |
| Posted by: stoirmeil 10-Oct-2007, 11:05 AM |
| OK, this is real science, not a joke. But still somewhat intriguing to think about -- notice the line about independence of the findings from other factors. This is only the abstract -- I imagine you could get hold of the whole report, including the methods section detailing exactly how they set up the research, through your library. I always wondered why there wasn't a "Yankee Gothic" genre in literature . . . this may shed some light (or maybe some dark) on the subject. The Effect of Country Music on Suicide STEVEN STACK, Wayne State University JIM GUNDLACH, Auburn University Abstract This article assesses the link between country music and metropolitan suicide rates. Country music is hypothesized to nurture a suicidal mood through its concerns with problems common in the suicidal population, such as marital discord, alcohol abuse, and alienation from work. The results of a multiple regression analysis of 49 metropolitan areas show that the greater the airtime devoted to country music, the greater the white suicide rate. The effect is independent of divorce, southernness, poverty, and gun availability. The existence of a country music subculture is thought to reinforce the link between country music and suicide. Our model explains 51% of the variance in urban white suicide rates. Sociological work on the relationship between art and society has been largely restricted to speculative, sociohistorical theories that are often mutually opposed. Some theorists see art as creating social structure ( Adorno 1973), while Sorokin ( 1937 ) suggests that society and art are manifested in cyclical autono mous spheres; and still others contend that art is a reflection of social structure ( Albrecht 1954). Little empirical work has been done on the impact of music on social problems. While some research has linked music to criminal behavior ( Singer, Levine & Jou 1990), the relationship between music and suicide remains largely unexplored. Music is not mentioned in reviews of the literature on suicide ( Lester 1983; Stack 1982, 1990b); instead, the impact of art on suicide has been largely restricted to analyses of television movies and soap operas (for a review, see Stack 1990b). In this article, we explore the link between a particular form of popular music (country music) and metropolitan suicide rates. We contend that the themes found in country music foster a suicidal mood among people already at risk of suicide and that it is thereby associated with a high suicide rate. The effect is buttressed by the country subculture and a link between this subculture and a racial status related to an increased suicide risk. ____________________ © The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, September 1992 71(1):211-218 * Data on suicide mortality and most other variables were provided by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. We are grateful to Richard Peterson for his inspirations and helpful discussions, to the anonymous reviewers for their probing reviews, and to Mitch Henry for his help in gathering the data on country music. Direct correspondence to Steven Stack, Department of Sociology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202. |
| Posted by: coastman 10-Oct-2007, 12:07 PM |
| Nuts!!!!! |
| Posted by: stoirmeil 10-Oct-2007, 01:08 PM | ||
Quite possibly. I'm just reporting what I found. |
| Posted by: maggiemahone1 10-Oct-2007, 01:47 PM |
I agree with coastman! Nuts!!!  |
| Posted by: Rindy 10-Oct-2007, 03:17 PM |
They always have to blame the music  Slainte |
| Posted by: Robert Phoenix 10-Oct-2007, 04:52 PM |
I wonder what the effectof listening to Celtic music is.   |
| Posted by: Lady of Avalon 10-Oct-2007, 04:59 PM |
| Sure, anything is fine as a solution to problems for some people. If country music is a link for suicide what about rave music or rap that talks about killing your parents. Which in my eyes is far more a link to violence and suicide...indeed it's nuts. |
| Posted by: CelticRadio 10-Oct-2007, 05:32 PM | ||
I think for the most part, Celtic Music is definitely more uplifting. While there are dark songs of Celtic background, for the most part, Celtic music is about dancing, drinking and leaving your problems where they belong - at the door! I do agree that listening to many songs in a row about problems just brings you down. Positive songs I think can cheer you up and make you think of things in a different light. |
| Posted by: Aaediwen 10-Oct-2007, 05:45 PM | ||
Increased appreciation of true beer, and a tendency for males to wear unbifurcated garments? Perhaps a greater tendancy for rebellion? I'm convinced that blaming art for societal flaws is a load of smelly crock. Sure, perhaps an isolated incident may occur (Like the guy who killed himself after being cheated on EverQuest) But in general, if someone is unstable enough not to control such tenancies that much, then they have bigger issues than what music they listen to or shows they watch. I like the line that if games effected people like that then we'd all be sitting in darkened rooms munching bright pills and listening to repetitive music while running from ghosts. Same goes for other art forms. |
| Posted by: stoirmeil 10-Oct-2007, 06:50 PM | ||
I'm not endorsing this one way or the other -- just found it odd and a talking point. But there's never one reason for a desperate act, and so you can't talk about simple causation. I think the study may simply be pointing out a correlation that bears out statistically -- certainly the researchers would have to show that it does -- when someone is burdened already, as you say, a big dose of sad songs about personal relationship disasters can show up in the mix of things leading up to an attempt, more often than chance would account for. |
| Posted by: TheCarolinaScotsman 10-Oct-2007, 06:59 PM |
Wonder if they investigated the relationship of hip hop "music" and the white suicide rate.  |
| Posted by: Robert Phoenix 10-Oct-2007, 09:09 PM | ||
Or the murder rate. What use to scare the heck out of me is that when I worked in a music store during the late 90's rap out sold everything else three or four to one. Of course that trend seems to be ending now. I think that one of the reasons is that we as Americans, at least in the white culture, have lost so much of our Old World Traditions. I'm half Italian/half German but we did not have or celebrate any traditions in our family growing up that were native to either side. My grandparents had known some of the languuage but that was it. I couldn't even name one native Italian singer or song if I tried aside from really popular opera or tenor singers like Pavarotti or Bocelli |
| Posted by: maggiemahone1 10-Oct-2007, 09:25 PM |
I luv listening to Bocelli, his music in no way shape or form would make you think suicidal thoughts, only LOVE! Nothing is more relaxing than a glass of wine and Bocelli!!! anyway I think that just comes from everday living when life gets you so down, a person thinks there's no way out... Very sad but true...A wise man once told me, Suicide is the easy way out and I believe that to be true...You have to be a strong person to put up with the crap that the world dishes out today...this is my opinion, I don't represent no one but me own darn self!!! Celtic music does lift your spirits especially if you've had a Guiness or two or three!!!  maggiemahone1 |
| Posted by: ogdenmusic 10-Oct-2007, 09:28 PM |
| Country music and suicide, I don't think so. What would Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and the other say to this? Many different styles of music deal with many of lifes challenges and experiences good and bad. But to suggest he leads to suicide, I can't go with that. |
| Posted by: stoirmeil 11-Oct-2007, 07:17 AM |
| Interesting how we resist the idea of music's influence, as though it were a primary cause. The idea is that music is or can be a significant influence on someone who is already being affected by other factors. We admit it is uplifting, or adds to feelings of love -- but it has also always been used as a support to war efforts (the pipes are as much a weapon of war as they are a dance instrument: there are several World War I accounts of the tune "Blue Bonnets" bringing the men "over the top"), and there have been plenty of studies on the social effects of violent or degradingly sexual popular music, like some (but not all) rap. It's not being talked about as a primary cause in this study -- but as a factor which has a strong potential to tip a balance that is already heading in a direction. Music is a powerful adjunct to education, faith, work, sexuality, optimism, patriotism, war, expression of grief and despair -- any tendency can be strengthened by it, the more so because it is almost completely an emotional rather than a thinking influence. So it certainly could contribute to tipping over a fragile balance for someone who is depressed enough to be thinking about death already. This is different from saying that it "leads to" it. I don't know how they conducted this study without seeing the whole report, and I have only seen the abstract, so I can't tell if their methods and results are valid; but I don't think their results can be rejected based solely on personal experience either. It seems like they are following up on a solid history of study on the effect music can have on all kinds of behaviour. |
| Posted by: valpal 59 11-Oct-2007, 08:09 AM |
 |
| Posted by: stoirmeil 11-Oct-2007, 12:07 PM | ||
??????  ?????? |
| Posted by: Sekhmet 11-Oct-2007, 12:33 PM |
| Actually I can line up dark, disturbing and depressing songs involving murder and mayhem for hours on end with CR's music bank. But anyway. I want to read the rest of that paper badly now. I'm curious though. Why would it seem natural that things like heavy metal/goth music with similar (though granted more obvious) themes be automatically considered ripe for things like depression and suicide, but country music elicits such shock at the notion? Have you *listened* to it? Sorry, hopped up on painkillers and the sociologist in me tried to crawl out again...I'm genuinely curious though. |
| Posted by: stoirmeil 11-Oct-2007, 12:47 PM |
| Yee-HAAAAAA!!! Ahem. So to speak. It's available to me through J-Stor, the university journals database. I can't e-mail it anywhere, or even the link, because you have to be affiliated. But I can read it, and I can print it and send it to you (Sekhmet). I have a long bus ride later to mid town -- a good chance to read it (runs about 8 pages). Looks legit, though, or one hell of an expensive joke on the academy. |
| Posted by: Sekhmet 11-Oct-2007, 12:56 PM |
| Oh to have the keys to J-Stor... Only 8 pages? Wow, talk about short. |
| Posted by: stoirmeil 11-Oct-2007, 01:13 PM |
| r=.54, p<.05. The rest of the 8 pages is commentary. Not a mind-boggling correlation, but very solid and way outside the realm of accident, drink or the Little People. |
| Posted by: Sekhmet 11-Oct-2007, 02:12 PM |
| Sounds like one of the projects my sociology prof did way back when... ... ...y'know come to think on it it's a wonder we weren't arrested for some of 'em. |
| Posted by: Dogshirt 11-Oct-2007, 08:54 PM |
I'd kill myself too, if I had to listen to country music!   |
| Posted by: Robert Phoenix 16-Oct-2007, 08:25 PM |
| Death is still the number one killer in the United States! |
| Posted by: edenrobe 24-Oct-2016, 02:59 AM |
| EDM beats and online available to download today! Buy instrumental tracks electronic dance music such as festival beats by EDM producer.http://www.best-edm-beats.com |
| Posted by: five4 14-Mar-2017, 03:54 PM |
| Grew up on Country music...50's 60's and 70's, that stuff they play today, well, it ain't country and it's barely music. Country music can trace it's roots back through Bluegrass all the way to the mountain music enjoyed by the Irish, Scots and English immigrants. Their folk and traditional music is with us still today and I love it...But suicide? Are you daft, come on now, with all the trash music out there that's so dark and violent? Bye the way, do you know what you get when you play a country song backwards? His girl comes back, he gets a new truck and his dog doesn't die...Amen |
| Posted by: dalern63 30-Jul-2017, 12:48 PM |
| suicide leaves more questions than answers |
| Posted by: Shadows 31-Jul-2017, 09:11 AM |
| Blue Grass not country has its roots in Celtic folk. |
| Posted by: Irishqueen 31-Oct-2017, 08:57 AM |
| Sad statistics. i believe if your suicidal any type of music or usually a particular song, can make you feel sad. then i guess its up to the individual as to the action they take when they hear a sad song. my brother committed suicide while he had a country song playing on repeat. i dont blame the music or the song. he committed suicide because he couldnt deal with lifes challenges. i love and miss my brother every minute of every day. music helps me fight sadness. i guess its all how you look at life and how the music affects your spirit. |