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Article: Church attendance, denomination, and suicide ideology.
- Article from:
- The Journal of Social Psychology
- Article date:
- October 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Durkheim (1983) believed that a high degree of religious integration reduces the incidence of suicide. Thus, according to Durkheim, strong communal religious beliefs and practices, such as those in Catholicism, for example, protect against suicide. The results of some studies have provided support for Durkheim's hypothesis: Breault (1986); Burr, McCall, and Powell-Griner (1994); and Faupel, Kowalski, and Starr (1987) found that populations with a higher proportion of Catholics had a lower incidence of suicide, and the results of Simpson and Conklin's (1989) study indicate that Islam decreased suicide more than Christianity did. Other researchers, however, have not found a ...