Alec Baldwin never actually left the United States, even though he said he would if George W. Bush won in 2004. So people make silly threats about politics but do political outcomes have any effect on more serious issues, like suicide?
Suicide risk factors are something sociologists love to think about and a new longitudinal study published in Social Science Quarterly says it analyzed suicide rates at a state level from 1981-2005 and determined that presidential election outcomes directly influence suicide rates among voters.
Previous research focused on whether the election process itself influenced suicide rates and found that suicide rates fell during the election season but the results of the actual outcomes have a few surprises. Enough so that the whole data set may be meaningless.
Results: In states where the majority of voters supported the national election winner, suicide rates decreased but suicide rates decreased even more dramatically in states where the majority of voters supported the election loser - 4.6 percent lower for males and 5.3 lower for females. Basically, election years brought hope so fewer people committed suicide but if you were friends with a lot of people who supported the loser, you might also be less likely to commit suicide because you have friends.
Lead author Richard A. Dunn, Ph.D., Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University, agrees it might be social cohesion more than outcomes. "Sure, supporting the loser stinks, but if everyone around you supported the loser, it isn't as bad because you feel connected to those around you. In other words, it is more comforting to be a Democrat in Massachusetts or Rhode Island when George W. Bush was re-elected than to be the lonely Democrat in Idaho or Oklahoma."
Researchers have commonly thought that people who are less connected to other members of society are more likely to commit suicide. The authors of the study became interested in this concept when studying the effect of job loss and unemployment on suicide risk, which theoretically also causes people to feel less connected to society. The authors realized that while previous work had explored whether events that brought people together and reaffirmed their shared heritage such as elections, war, religious and secular holidays lowered suicide rates, researchers had generally ignored how the outcomes of these events could also influence suicide risk.
Citation: Timothy J. Classen, Richard A. Dunn, 'The Politics of Hope and Despair: The Effect of Presidential Election Outcomes on Suicide Rates', Social Science Quarterly Volume 91, Issue 3, pages 593–612, September 2010, DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6237.2010.00709.x
