第128章
(Hint for students: The
annual American suicide rate is 12 out of every 100,000 people.)
3. If the campus or community operates a crisis telephone line, the instructor might arrange a field trip
for interested students to visit the facility or have a worker as a guest for the class.
4. For instructors with some experience in counseling, one interesting variation is to have students
role-play callers who are contacting a suicide crisis line. Either the instructor or a student could
role-play the telephone counselor, and the class could discuss what and what not to say to a person
who is having a crisis. This technique works especially well if, after particularly interesting
episodes, the role-played action is “frozen” for detailed discussion.
5. Discuss “copy-cat” suicides, the contagious effect of media on facilitating suicides.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Alverez, A. (1971). The savage God. New York: Random House.
Barrington, M. R., & Hendin, H. (1984). Can suicide be rational? In J. Rubinstein & B. D. Slife (Eds.), Taking
sides: Clashing views on controversial social issues. (3rd ed.). Guilford, CT Dushkin Publishing Group.
Phillips, D. P. (1986). Natural experiments on the effects of mass media violence on fatal aggression: Strengths and
weaknesses of a new approach. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 19, pp.
207-250). Orlando, FL: Academic Press
Schneidman, E. (1985). Definition of suicide, New York: Wiley
Schneidman, E. (1987, March). At the point of no return. Psychology Today pp. 54-58
424
HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOWABOUT SUICIDE?
Circle the letter that indicates whether the following statements are true or false.
T F 1. Men attempt suicide more often than women.
T F 2. Women commit suicide more often than men.
T F 3. Poisoning, by either pills or gas, is the most common form of
suicide.
T F 4. Minorities commit suicide more often than whites.
T F 5. The higher the socioeconomic level, the lower the suicide rate.
T F 6. After about 60 years of age, the suicide rate begins to decline
continuously.
T F 7. Suicide rates for college students reached an all-time peak in
the 1960s and have declined somewhat since then.
T F 8. Suicide rates are lower for people who are terminally ill than
for people who have illnesses with no end in sight.
T F 9. Those people who never mention suicide are more likely to
actually commit the act than individuals who occasionally
discuss it.
T F 10. One of the difficulties in predicting suicides is that they are
often committed without warning.
425
EVALUATION AND RESEARCH ETHICS
OBJECTIVES
1. To acquaint students with the ethical issues surrounding research with human subjects.
2. To consider the perspective of prospective investigators and the institutional review boards that are
designed to minimize or prevent harmful research procedures.
3. To create a role-playing situation that vividly illustrates the review process for use of subjects in
research.
OVERVIEW
The same research procedures that can lead to helpful gains in knowledge may also represent a source of
danger to the individuals who serve as subjects. The power of the researcher and of the scientific
establishment relative to that of their subjects has been balanced in recent years by the creation of
institutional review boards (IRBs). These peer review committees have established evaluation procedures
that protect the welfare of human and animal subjects. How does evaluation of the ethics of research
operate?