Social Deviancy and Suicide: Medical Specialty and Occupation
Wechsler and Pugh (1967) predicted and found that individuals whose social characteristics are relatively uncommon in a community should have higher rates of psychiatric breakdown. Lester (1987) found that the suicide rate of immigrant groups was related to their numbers in the national population and that the suicide rate of nonwhites was related to the numbers of nonwhites in the state population. To investigate the generality of these findings, first data were analyzed from a study of suicide rates among physicians (Blachly, et al., 1968) from 16 medical specialities (mean number in specialty: 15,828, SD: 17,267). No significant association was found between the suicide rate of each specialty and the number of physicians in that specialty (Pearson r = -.16). Similarly, the suicide rates of men in 35 occupational groups (Labovitz & Hagedorn, 1971) were correlated with the number of men in each occupational group (M: 368,167, SD: 434,395) (Guralnick, 1963). The correlation between the suicide rates and the size of the occupational groups was not significantly different from zero (r = .17). These analyses do not confirm the earlier findings from immigrants and minorities, suggesting that occupational status has different implications for mental health than does ethnic status. Being an immigrant in a nation where there are relatively few others from one's nation of birth appears to be more stressful (at least with respect to suicide rates as a measure) than having an occupation or medical specialty that is relatively less common.