Preface
1. The Apparent Anomaly of Self-Destructive Behavior
Assumptions about the Nature of Adaptive Behavior
Assumptions about Innate Determination versus Learning, and the Influence of Natural Selection
The Problem of Self-Destructiveness
A Précis of the Arguments
2. The Current Incidence of Suicide and Self-Injury
Suicide
Parasuicide or Attempted Suicide
Chronic Suicide and Risk Taking
Self-Injurious or Self-Mutilative Behavior
Conclusions
3. Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective
The History of Suicide
Suicide in Primitive Cultures
Modern Ethnic, Racial, and Cultural Differences
Conclusions
4. Self-Destructiveness in Other Species
"Suicide" among Social Insects
Migration, Emigration, and Population Dispersion
Kin Selection and Parental Investment
Self-Injury in Captivity and Experimental Conditions
A Laboratory "Suicide Paradigm"
The "Suicide-Death" Phenomenon
Other Instances
Conclusions
5. Biological Fitness and the Social Ecology of Suicide
Proximate Motivation of Suicide
Suicide in Childhood
Suicide in Adolescence and Early Adulthood
Age and Reproductive Status in Adult Suicide
Other Trends in Adult Suicide
Summary and Interpretation
6. Cultural Evolution and Suicide
Technology and the Origin of Suicide
Transitions in Methods and Technology
Cognition and Suicide
The Death Concept
Imitation and Vicarious Learning
Summary and Conclusions
7. Stress, Pathology, and Suicide
Maladaptive States and Inheritance
Environmental Stressors, Gene Expression, and Maladaptiveness
Suicide and Psychopathology
Rate of Adaptation to Harsh and Novel Environmental Contingencies
Pathogenic Conditions, Culture, and the Social Ecology of Suicide
8. Coping Failure, Senescence, Gene Expression, and Suicide
Prosuicidal Gene Expression and Natural Selection
The Medawar-Williams Hypothesis, Senescence, and Death
Breakdown of Other Life-Preserving Factors with Coping Failure
Other Facets of Death and Senescence
Genetics and Suicide
Other Indirect Evidence of Genetic Involvement
Reconciling Gene-Expression and Cultural-Learning Involvement in Suicide
9. Altruism and Suicide
Selection Processes and Altruism
Gene Sharing among Individuals
Relative Strengths of Different Orders of Selection
Kin Selection and Human Suicide
Group Benefit and Human Suicide
Aging, Reproductive Status, and Altruism
Modern Conditions and Exceptional or Aberrant Cases
Conclusions
10. Suicide, Physiology, and Behavioral Predispositions
The Euphoria-Dysphoria Dimension
Brain Reinforcement or Reward Mechanisms
Stress, Hormones, and Neurochemistry
Monoamines and Suicide
Physiological Pain Mechanisms and Suicide
Conclusions
11. Ethics and Suicide
Ethics as Modulators of Suicide Frequency
Ethics of Suicide
12. Limitations and Qualifications
Suicide and Genetics
Exceptional Cases
Life Out of Context
Limits on the Predictive Nature of the Hypotheses
The Frequency of Suicide
Biases in Statistics on Suicide
Is Suicide a Unitary Phenomenon?
The Species Generality of the Phenomenon
Cognition, Learning, and Culture Revisited
13. Suicide: A Synthesis
The State of Modern Suicidology
Imperfections in Biological Adaptation
Coping Strategies and Life Events
Coping Failure and Suicide
Mediation of Motivational Changes Accompanying Coping Failure
14. Parasuicide and Suicide
Definitions of Parasuicide and Biases in Data
Social Ecology of Parasuicide
Followup Studies of Parasuicides
Lethality of the Suicide Attempt
Conclusions
15. Chronic Self-Abuse, Risk Taking, and Other Self-Damaging Behavior
Chronic Self-Abuse
Risk Taking
Other Self-Damaging Behavioral Patterns
Summary and Conclusions
16. Self-Injurious or Self-Mutilative Behavior
The Role of Learning
Physiological Malformation and Damage
Abnormalities in Environment
Learning Revisited
Relationship to Adaptation
17. Toward an Expansion of Research Paradigms
Self-Damaging Behavior: A Supersynthesis
Critical Issues for Research
Final Statement
References
Author Index
Subject Index