Altruistic Suicide Research Articles

Durkheim's types of suicide and social capital: a cross‐national comparison of 53 countries

AbstractEmile Durkheim conceptualised four types of suicide depending on the level of regulation and integration of society. Many studies have been conducted using his types of suicide as a model. Recently, social capital has produced a wide range of studies examining the benefits that the concept has to social and economic outcomes in a community. Durkheim's conceptualisation of egoistic, altruistic, and anomic suicide may be viewed as different forms of social capital. The current analysis examines Durkheim's different types of suicide using a social capital model. The findings demonstrate that suicide increases in countries where the individual is too integrated into society (altruistic suicide) and decreases in countries where the individual does not feel part of society (egoistic suicide). The findings illustrate that social capital can increase or decrease suicide depending on the amount of social capital present in the country.

Profile of Islamic suicide bombers: A literature review

Aim To try to define the profile of Islamic suicide bombers. Methods Literature review of scientific articles (PubMed-Google). Results According to the very few relevant studies there does not seem to exist a single psychological characteristic that differentiates suicide bombers. However, some profiles have been proposed. Islamic bombers are predominately young men (60–70%), mostly single, originating from all social, economic and educational backgrounds (the more educated ones have increased lately). They appear to possess dependent and/or avoidant traits; other times impulsive and/or emotionally unstable ones. They are described as submissive against authority figures, inadequate in handling stressful situations and with a rather constricted view of reality. Suicide bombers do not appear to suffer from major psychopathology. Sometimes, they want to take revenge for the injury/killing of (a) loved one(s). The conviction of ethnic humiliation and victimization, the view that the enemy is dominant and that the rules of the game are unjust appear crucially important: only an unexpected, devastating act of self-sacrifice (martyrdom) could turn the tables on. Suicide bombers' families are generously compensated and enjoy high social status. Religion seems to provide ethical legitimization to similar acts. Islam condemns suicide except when used to champion Islamic values or fight against infidel invaders (Jihad). In these cases, there is the promise of absolving all the individual's sins and of after death pleasures. Conclusions The decision to become an Islamic suicide bomber appears determined by a plethora of personal, social, political and religious factors. This kind of suicide resembles Emile Durkheim's type of altruistic suicide.

When Too Much Integration and Regulation Hurts

Durkheim’s model of suicide famously includes four types: anomic, egoistic, altruistic, and fatalistic suicides; however, sociology has primarily focused on anomic and egoistic suicides and neglected suicides predicated on too much integration or regulation. This article addresses this gap. We begin by elaborating Durkheim’s concepts of integration and regulation using insights from contemporary social psychology, the sociology of emotions, and cultural sociology. We then posit a more coherent theory of suicides resulting from too much integration and too much regulation. Importantly, we shift attention away from motives (altruism = self-sacrifice). We also reject the idea that high levels of integration and regulation are in and of themselves harmful. Instead, we propose three sociocultural explanations—(1) disruptions, (2) the spread of negative emotions and ideas, and (3) the pervasiveness of negative, suicide scripts—that elucidate how and why too much integration and regulation can become harmful and facilitate suicide.

Adolescent attitudes about altruistic suicide

A survey of 1,019 Polish high school students found that some forms of altruistic suicide were viewed favorably, whereas other forms were viewed very negatively. A relatively more negative view in general toward altruistic suicide was associated with being more religious, whereas a relatively more positive view was associated with personal involvement in suicidal behavior and having friends who had committed suicide.

Immunity, suicide or both? Ecological determinants for the combined evolution of anti-pathogen defense systems.

BackgroundParasite-host arms race is one of the key factors in the evolution of life. Most cellular life forms, in particular prokaryotes, possess diverse forms of defense against pathogens including innate immunity, adaptive immunity and programmed cell death (altruistic suicide). Coevolution of these different but interacting defense strategies yields complex evolutionary regimes.ResultsWe develop and extensively analyze a computational model of coevolution of different defense strategies to show that suicide as a defense mechanism can evolve only in structured populations and when the attainable degree of immunity against pathogens is limited. The general principle of defense evolution seems to be that hosts do not evolve two costly defense mechanisms when one is sufficient. Thus, the evolutionary interplay of innate immunity, adaptive immunity and suicide, leads to an equilibrium state where the combination of all three defense strategies is limited to a distinct, small region of the parameter space. The three strategies can stably coexist only if none of them are highly effective. Coupled adaptive immunity-suicide systems, the existence of which is implied by the colocalization of genes for the two types of defense in prokaryotic genomes, can evolve either when immunity-associated suicide is more efficacious than other suicide systems or when adaptive immunity functionally depends on the associated suicide system.ConclusionsComputational modeling reveals a broad range of outcomes of coevolution of anti-pathogen defense strategies depending on the relative efficacy of different mechanisms and population structure. Some of the predictions of the model appear compatible with recent experimental evolution results and call for additional experiments.

Suicide in India - changing trends and challenges ahead.

Byline: R. Ponnudurai Dear Colleagues, I would like to begin my oration with my humble homage to the doyen in the field of psychiatry, Prof. D. L. N. Murti Rao in whose name this prestigious oration has been installed. Unfortunately, he was snatched away from us by an untimely demise on the last day of 1962. But, for us he has left behind volumes of his scholarly works. One such work that had prompted me to pursue was on suicide. At this juncture, my humble homages are also to my beloved teacher Prof. A. Venkoba Rao at whose feet I learned not only the ABCD of psychiatry, but also got the inspiration to pursue his pioneering works on suicide, and the same drive has indeed made me choose this topic for my oration. Moreover, I owe my gratitude to my mentors revered Prof. M. Sarada Menon and Prof. O. Somasundaram for their constant guidance in my academic activities. Introduction Suicide in ancient India has largely been influenced by sacrificial motives, for the sake of honor, religious, and sociocultural beliefs apart from psychiatric and other causes. Ramayana and Mahabharata are the twin epics of India and down centuries they have influenced the thoughts, temper, conduct, and culture of our people. From the pages of Ramayana, it is learned that stung by a baseless accusation that he had accepted his wife after her stay in Ravana's abode, Lord Rama unleashed: “I shall abandon my own life; take my life and should be glad to kill you all.” Lord Rama's foremost devotee, Hanuman when his initial search for Sita proves futile, for a moment decides to commit suicide. He would rather give up his life than return without clues or news of Sita.[sup][1] In Mahabharata, on hearing the news about the death of his son Abhimanyu in the battle, Arjuna wanted a huge fire to be prepared for him to commit suicide; however, that was prevented by Lord Krishna by reminding Arjuna about his own earlier advice to another old man who tried to commit suicide by falling into fire on the death of his son.[sup][1] Chandra Gupta Maurya in 298 BC together with one of his Jain saints and many other monks went to South India; there he ended his life by deliberate slow starvation in the orthodox Jain manner.[sup][2] Here, the individual kills himself purely for the sake of sacrifice because even with no particular reason, renunciation in itself is considered praiseworthy. The great Chola king Koperunchola renounced the kingdom in favor of his son and decided to undertake the traditional fast unto death in one of the small islands surrounded by river Cauvery in the vicinity of the sacred Vaishnava shrine in Srirangam. All the elements mentioned by Durkeim probably played a part in this suicide viz., egoistic, altruistic, and anomie.[sup][3] In the practice of “Sati,” the self-immolation of the widow is classified as obligatory altruistic suicide by Durkeim. Sociocultural beliefs and partly religious beliefs play the role here. In modern times too altruistic suicides have been witnessed. The great leader Potti Sriramulu gave up his life by fasting unto death for the creation of Andhra Pradesh. Recent Drift in Sociodemographic Profile of Suicide in India Suicide rate Over centuries changes in several domains that have contributed to suicide have been witnessed. India is labeled as “Suicide Capital of South-East Asia' as it has recorded the highest number of suicides in South-East Asia in 2012, according to a WHO report.[sup][4] Are we going to dismiss this report as ill-founded? If you look at the progress of the rate of suicide [sup][6] [Table 1], in 1967 the suicide rate in India was 7.8, but it has steadily increased to 11.0 in 2013, with a peak rate of 11.4 in 2010.{Table 1} Age group There is a shift in the predominance of the number of suicides from the elderly to the younger people all over the world. …

Cell biology. A cell death avenue evolved from a life-saving path.

Altruistic cell suicide model is challenged. [Also see Report by Malmgren Hill et al. ]

The Evolutionary Puzzle of Suicide

Mechanisms of self-destruction are difficult to reconcile with evolution’s first rule of thumb: survive and reproduce. However, evolutionary success ultimately depends on inclusive fitness. The altruistic suicide hypothesis posits that the presence of low reproductive potential and burdensomeness toward kin can increase the inclusive fitness payoff of self-removal. The bargaining hypothesis assumes that suicide attempts could function as an honest signal of need. The payoff may be positive if the suicidal person has a low reproductive potential. The parasite manipulation hypothesis is founded on the rodent—Toxoplasma gondii host-parasite model, in which the parasite induces a “suicidal” feline attraction that allows the parasite to complete its life cycle. Interestingly, latent infection by T. gondii has been shown to cause behavioral alterations in humans, including increased suicide attempts. Finally, we discuss how suicide risk factors can be understood as nonadaptive byproducts of evolved mechanisms that malfunction. Although most of the mechanisms proposed in this article are largely speculative, the hypotheses that we raise accept self-destructive behavior within the framework of evolutionary theory.

Sperm competition drives the evolution of suicidal reproduction in mammals

Suicidal reproduction (semelparity) has evolved in only four genera of mammals. In these insectivorous marsupials, all males die after mating, when failure of the corticosteroid feedback mechanism elevates stress hormone levels during the mating season and causes lethal immune system collapse (die-off). We quantitatively test and resolve the evolutionary causes of this surprising and extreme life history strategy. We show that as marsupial predators in Australia, South America, and Papua New Guinea diversified into higher latitudes, seasonal predictability in abundance of their arthropod prey increased in multiple habitats. More-predictable prey peaks were associated with shorter annual breeding seasons, consistent with the suggestion that females accrue fitness benefits by timing peak energy demands of reproduction to coincide with maximum food abundance. We demonstrate that short mating seasons intensified reproductive competition between males, increasing male energy investment in copulations and reducing male postmating survival. However, predictability of annual prey cycles alone does not explain suicidal reproduction, because unlike insect abundance, peak ovulation dates in semelparous species are often synchronized to the day among years, triggered by a species-specific rate of change of photoperiod. Among species with low postmating male survival, we show that those with suicidal reproduction have shorter mating seasons and larger testes relative to body size. This indicates that lethal effort is adaptive in males because females escalate sperm competition by further shortening and synchronizing the annual mating period and mating promiscuously. We conclude that precopulatory sexual selection by females favored the evolution of suicidal reproduction in mammals.

Comprehensive analysis of the HEPN superfamily: identification of novel roles in intra-genomic conflicts, defense, pathogenesis and RNA processing

BackgroundThe major role of enzymatic toxins that target nucleic acids in biological conflicts at all levels has become increasingly apparent thanks in large part to the advances of comparative genomics. Typically, toxins evolve rapidly hampering the identification of these proteins by sequence analysis. Here we analyze an unexpectedly widespread superfamily of toxin domains most of which possess RNase activity.ResultsThe HEPN superfamily is comprised of all α-helical domains that were first identified as being associated with DNA polymerase β-type nucleotidyltransferases in prokaryotes and animal Sacsin proteins. Using sensitive sequence and structure comparison methods, we vastly extend the HEPN superfamily by identifying numerous novel families and by detecting diverged HEPN domains in several known protein families. The new HEPN families include the RNase LS and LsoA catalytic domains, KEN domains (e.g. RNaseL and Ire1) and the RNase domains of RloC and PrrC. The majority of HEPN domains contain conserved motifs that constitute a metal-independent endoRNase active site. Some HEPN domains lacking this motif probably function as non-catalytic RNA-binding domains, such as in the case of the mannitol repressor MtlR. Our analysis shows that HEPN domains function as toxins that are shared by numerous systems implicated in intra-genomic, inter-genomic and intra-organismal conflicts across the three domains of cellular life. In prokaryotes HEPN domains are essential components of numerous toxin-antitoxin (TA) and abortive infection (Abi) systems and in addition are tightly associated with many restriction-modification (R-M) and CRISPR-Cas systems, and occasionally with other defense systems such as Pgl and Ter. We present evidence of multiple modes of action of HEPN domains in these systems, which include direct attack on viral RNAs (e.g. LsoA and RNase LS) in conjunction with other RNase domains (e.g. a novel RNase H fold domain, NamA), suicidal or dormancy-inducing attack on self RNAs (RM systems and possibly CRISPR-Cas systems), and suicidal attack coupled with direct interaction with phage components (Abi systems). These findings are compatible with the hypothesis on coupling of pathogen-targeting (immunity) and self-directed (programmed cell death and dormancy induction) responses in the evolution of robust antiviral strategies. We propose that altruistic cell suicide mediated by HEPN domains and other functionally similar RNases was essential for the evolution of kin and group selection and cell cooperation. HEPN domains were repeatedly acquired by eukaryotes and incorporated into several core functions such as endonucleolytic processing of the 5.8S-25S/28S rRNA precursor (Las1), a novel ER membrane-associated RNA degradation system (C6orf70), sensing of unprocessed transcripts at the nuclear periphery (Swt1). Multiple lines of evidence suggest that, similar to prokaryotes, HEPN proteins were recruited to antiviral, antitransposon, apoptotic systems or RNA-level response to unfolded proteins (Sacsin and KEN domains) in several groups of eukaryotes.ConclusionsExtensive sequence and structure comparisons reveal unexpectedly broad presence of the HEPN domain in an enormous variety of defense and stress response systems across the tree of life. In addition, HEPN domains have been recruited to perform essential functions, in particular in eukaryotic rRNA processing. These findings are expected to stimulate experiments that could shed light on diverse cellular processes across the three domains of life.ReviewersThis article was reviewed by Martijn Huynen, Igor Zhulin and Nick Grishin

Suicide Bombing: The Cultural Foundations of Morocco’s New Version of Martyrdom

Abstract: This article argues that the radical Islamist conception of martyrdom in the Moroccan case, through a pre-existing fundamental receptive cultural framework, implies an articulation with maraboutic Islam. Moroccos local cultural embedding of martyrdom involves the still-working heritage of maraboutic institutions, beliefs, and practices, as well as the sway of mainstream Islam that conditions and informs the Islamist lived experience of self-sacrifice. A survey of young Moroccans’ interpretations of martyrdom demonstrates how the cultural bed already incorporates the rising Islamist cultural model of altruistic suicide. What is customarily referred to as an Islamist conception of jihad and self-sacrifice, or as a form of group indoctrination, is discovered to derive its cultural schemata from maraboutic and orthodox cultural models of martyrdom that are already culturally embedded. Martyrdom is a cluster of cultural representations that most Moroccan Muslims, akin to their co-religionists in the Islamic world, adhere to, though with some particularities firmly tied to the local cultural bed of Islam where they socialize. There is a cultural worldview at work, over and above all other factors and considerations of radicalization, that empowers the self-sacrificers and enables them to delve into Islamist suiciding projects. The survey conducted in Morocco shows that jihad, rather than being a matter of indoctrination, is part of a Moroccan popular culture of Islam; jihad and martyrdom are existing cultural schemata built into the popular imagination about how an Islamic combatant should be engaged in a fight against encroachers, intruders, and enemies of the faith.

Evolution of suicide as a defence strategy against pathogens in a spatially structured environment

Suicide upon infection by lytic phages is known in several bacteria species and represents an effective defence strategy to limit phage spread. However, the ecological conditions favouring the evolution of such a radically altruistic behaviour are unclear. Here, we model the feedback of epidemiology on host evolution in a spatially structured environment and we generate several specific predictions on altruistic suicide evolution. We test these predictions experimentally by competing E. coli cells carrying the suicide gene Lit against non-carrier cells in the presence or in the absence of the lytic phage T6. We show that in accord with our theoretical analysis altruistic suicide is only favoured in the presence of the phage in spatially structured environments at intermediate levels of mixing. Our work provides a general explanation for the evolution of altruistic defence strategies against pathogens. We discuss the implications of these results for oncolytic virus therapy.

The ‘Other’ in Sociological Canons: Reading the Trinity through Critical Post-colonial Lens

The imagery of ‘otherness’ played a significant role in modern Europe's cognisance of the orient, the colonised, the feminine and the homosexual which were viewed as threats to the values of a ‘rational, progressive and civilised’ society. But how was ‘the non-European other’ represented in classical sociology's canons authored by the trinity of Durkheim, Weber and Marx? The paper focuses on Durkheim's examination of the Hindu sati as an altruistic suicide, Weber's theorisation that the European Protestant Christianity could only produce rationality and capitalism, and Marx's non-reflexive neglect of the progressive pre-modern from India's pre-colonial past. A critical post-colonial reading of the selected texts identifies the ahistorical, orientalist, racialised, colonialist and historicist fault lines that crisscross the sociological canons. The time is ripe to rectify the denial of subjecthood to the ‘non-western other’ that we often encounter in the sociological canons. The paper concludes that the ‘non-western other’ is capable of being a subject in her own right. The critical engagement with the sociological canons is a small step towards building the ground for a more reflexive and historically specific global sociology in the post-colonial era. As an intellectual endeavour of the post-colonial era, global sociology should be vigilant about global capitalism's tendency towards obliterating the diverse ways of thinking and acting.

Viral evasion of a bacterial suicide system by RNA-based molecular mimicry enables infectious altruism.

Abortive infection, during which an infected bacterial cell commits altruistic suicide to destroy the replicating bacteriophage and protect the clonal population, can be mediated by toxin-antitoxin systems such as the Type III protein–RNA toxin-antitoxin system, ToxIN. A flagellum-dependent bacteriophage of the Myoviridae, ΦTE, evolved rare mutants that “escaped” ToxIN-mediated abortive infection within Pectobacterium atrosepticum. Wild-type ΦTE encoded a short sequence similar to the repetitive nucleotide sequence of the RNA antitoxin, ToxI, from ToxIN. The ΦTE escape mutants had expanded the number of these “pseudo-ToxI” genetic repeats and, in one case, an escape phage had “hijacked” ToxI from the plasmid-borne toxIN locus, through recombination. Expression of the pseudo-ToxI repeats during ΦTE infection allowed the phage to replicate, unaffected by ToxIN, through RNA–based molecular mimicry. This is the first example of a non-coding RNA encoded by a phage that evolves by selective expansion and recombination to enable viral suppression of a defensive bacterial suicide system. Furthermore, the ΦTE escape phages had evolved enhanced capacity to transduce replicons expressing ToxIN, demonstrating virus-mediated horizontal transfer of genetic altruism.

Viral molecular mimicry circumvents abortive infection and suppresses bacterial suicide to make hosts permissive for replication

The global interplay between bacteria and bacteriophages has generated many macromolecules useful in biotechnology, through the co-evolutionary see-saw of bacterial defense and viral counter-attack measures. Bacteria can protect themselves using abortive infection systems, which induce altruistic suicide in an infected cell and therefore protect the clonal population at the expense of the infected individual. Our recent paper describes how bacteriophage ΦTE successfully subverted the activity of a plasmid-borne abortive infection system. ΦTE evolved mimics of the small RNA antitoxin that naturally inhibits the active toxin component of this anti-viral mechanism. These mutant phages further manipulated the behavior of the host population, through transduction of the plasmid encoding the abortive infection system. Transductants thereby became enslaved by the abortive infection system, committing suicide in response to infection by the original phage population. In effect, the new host was infected by an “addictive altruism,” to the advantage of the resistant bacteriophage.

Męczeństwo formą samobójstwa?

The article focuses on key elements of martyrdom (conscious and voluntary acceptance of death, dying for the faith, virtues pertaining to God, bearing witness to truth and love, patient endurance until death, externalised defending the truth of faith, a persecutor as opposed to the martyr, no pursuit of martyrdom, the pursuit of martyrdom not for its glory) and altruistic suicide (conscious and voluntary acceptance of death, death for the sake of others, society, bearing witness to the values, God, honour, friendship, freedom, desire for death without reward, death as a personal act, not harming innocent people, exceptions are acts of terrorism and suicide acts during wars). It seems that martyrdom and altruistic suicide are, using the language of mathematics, two different sets having a common part. Because of that there arises a considerable difficulty while classifying borderline situations. An auxiliary, though an insufficient criterion for martyrdom, appears to be external efficacy. The other element is the acceptance of death in the case of martyrdom, rather than striving for it. The sense of faith of people gathering at the grave of a martyr may be an essential element.

Can kin selection facilitate the evolution of the genetic program of senescence?

The theory of adaptive senescence, or phenoptosis ("altruistic suicide" of the organism), implies that mutations enhancing mortality growth with age ("senescence genes") can be favored by selection under some circumstances, although the nature of these circumstances and the frequency of their occurrence are not clear. Here I demonstrate by means of computer simulation that senescence genes can spread in the population's gene pool via the mechanism of kin selection if two conditions are met. First, the population must have high viscosity (low intermixing), which provides positive correlation between spatial proximity of individuals and their relatedness, an important precondition for kin selection. Second, prior to acquisition of the senescence genes, there must be a sufficiently fast decline in the reproductive potential with age, while viability should decrease slower or remain constant. These conditions are probably met in some territorial and social species with severe competition for social rank and mating partners.

Making sense of loss: Situating the Mumbai attacks of 26/11 in the context of altruistic suicide homicide

A peculiar irony characterizes the perception of global terrorism—in the strong penchant to flavor it with ethno or religious centric biases or in the disavowal of any auxiliary circumstance leading up to the sporadic incidence of violence. This paper analyzes the Mumbai attacks of November 26 th , 2009 from the context of altruistic suicide/homicide. The waging of war against anonymous targets in Mumbai was by all means impersonal. It could be connected to an aftermath of several factors: Kashmir, homegrown terrorism, backlash of sectarian groups or yet another manifestation of already hostile Indo-Pak relationships. The spectacle of terror that was life telecast by national and global media led to a sequel of reactions including a follow-up of Indo-Pak mutual accusations, evoking of national sentiments and analytical ruptures in south Asian intelligentsia in making sense of the loss. This paper situates the Mumbai attacks of 26/11 in the theoretical discourse on sociology of terrorism by (i) providing a scholastic definition of terrorism and its corresponding attributes that distinguishes terrorism from other sporadic acts of violence, (ii) reflects on the context of terrorism with reference to altruism as in the classical Durkhiemian tradition and (iii) analytically moves beyond the classical paradigm to redefine the terror trails of 26/11 within the emerging definitions of altruistic-suicide-homicide.

The mutacins of Streptococcus mutans: regulation and ecology

Streptococcus mutans is generally recognized as a causative agent of human dental caries. The production of mutacins (bacteriocins) by S.mutans is considered to be an important factor in the colonization and establishment of S.mutans in the dental biofilm. Two types of mutacins have been characterized: the lantibiotics and the non-lantibiotics. The lantibiotics generally have a wider spectrum of activity than the non-lantibiotics, which make them attractive targets for development into new antimicrobial modalities. The non-lantibiotics are much more prevalent among strains of S.mutans and play a significant role in both community-level and population-level interactions in the dental biofilm. These interactions are directly mediated through the ComCDE two-component system and the newly characterized LytTR Regulation Systems HdrRM and BrsRM. These systems coordinate natural competence development and mutacin production as a means to acquire transforming DNA either by killing closely related streptococcal species in the vicinity of S.mutans, or through an altruistic suicide mechanism among a subpopulation of competent cells within the S.mutans community. As more S.mutans strains are sequenced, it is anticipated that additional mutacins with novel functions will be discovered, which may yield further insights into the ecological role of mutacins within the oral biofilm.

Extracellular DNA in Biofilms

Extracellular DNA (eDNA) is an important biofilm component that was recently discovered. Its presence has been initially observed in biofilms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus intermedius, Streptococcus mutans, then Enterococcus faecalis and staphylococci. Autolysis is the common mechanism by which eDNA is released. In P. aeruginosa eDNA is generated by lysis of a bacterial subpopulation, under control of quorum sensing system. In E. faecalis autolysis proceeds in a fratricide mode, resulting from a process similar to necrosis of eukaryotic cells. In Staphylococcus aureus autolysis originates by an altruistic suicide, i.e., a programmed cell death similar to apoptosis of eukaryotic cells. In S. aureus autolysis is mediated by murein hydrolase, while in S. epidermidis by the autolysin protein AtlE. In P. aeruginosa eDNA is located primarily in the stalks of mushroom-shaped multicellular structures. In S. aureus the crucial role of eDNA in stabilizing biofilm is highlighted by the disgregating effect of DNase I. eDNA represents an important mechanism for horizontal gene transfer in bacteria. eDNA and other microbial structural motifs are recognized by the innate immune system via the TLR family of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs).