Pergamon NPW Ideas in fsychol. Vol. IS, No. I, pp. 97-103, 1997

(C 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain

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AN ETHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR

DAVID LESTER Center for the Study of Suicide, RR41, 5 Stonegate Court, Blackwood, NJ 08012, USA

and

ROBERT D. GOLDNEY The Adelaide Clinic, 33 Park Terrace, Gilberton, South Australia, 508 1, Australia

Abstract-Suicidal behavior is viewed from an ethological perspective, first as an innate releasing mechanism and then as a fixed action pattern. Finally, the concept of conservation- withdrawal is suggested as a possible mediator between the experience of external stressors and suicidal behavior. The implications of this analysis are discussed. 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd

Keywords: ethology, suicide, attempted suicide, conservation-withdrawal

INTRODUCTION

Ethology is the study of animal behavior, focusing on how and why animal behavior occurs’. Ethologists stress accurate observation and description of animal behavior, particularly in the animals’ natural habitats, but also in experimental situations where the stimuli with which the animals are confronted can be presented in a systematic fashion. Ethology believes that the mechanisms behind animal behavior are programmed into the animal’s neural networks and, thus, are determined largely by the genes and by the ways in which evolution has changed the characteristics of the animal.

It may not immediately be clear how ethological concepts could be applied to suicidal behavior, as some would argue that there needs to be evidence of conscious suicidal intent in order to classify a death as suicidal in nature (Goldstein, 1940).

However, others, such as Menninger (1938), have disagreed with this narrow definition. Behavior which appears to be suicidal to an observer has been reported in dolphins (Amory, 1970) and biologists frequently use the term “suicide” to describe behavior in lower animals such as the pink bollworm moth (Bariola, 1978), butterflies (Trail, 1980), pea aphids (McAllister & Roitberg, 1987), birds (O’Connor, 1978) and bacteria such as motil aeromonads (Namdari & Cabelli, 1989). Therefore, there appears to be a sound basis for examining how an ethological approach could assist our understanding of suicidal behavior.

‘This presentation of the principles of ethology is based on Gould (I 982) and Immelmann (1980).

98 D. Lester and R. D. Goldney

This paper reviews basic ethological principles briefly and then draws analogies with suicidal behavior before commenting on the advantages of such a conceptualization.

THE BASIC CONCEPTS OF ETHOLOGY

The basic concepts of ethology were developed by Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen who were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their work. Consider the following example: the egg-rolling response of the greylag goose. When a goose which is incubating eggs notices an egg near the nest, its attention is focused on this egg. It slowly rises, extends its neck over the egg and with the bottom of its bill rolls the egg back up into the nest.

This behavior is called a fixed action pattern. The response appears to be innate rather than learned, the coordination and patterning of the behavior is stereotyped, and, once initiated, is completed without any further sensory input. The stimuli which release the fixed action pattern is called the innate releasing mechanism. Because the goose responds to only one aspect of the object, the stimuli are also called the sign stimuli. The fixed action pattern is turned off and on by drives or motivation which limits the behavior to a particular period of time, in this case incubation until hatching. Innate releasing mechanisms are thought to illustrate the innate, programmed nature of much of animal behavior. They focus the animal’s attention and enable animals to respond quickly to stimuli without interference from thinking.

These stimuli appear initially to be discrete rather than more complex patterns. But, they can be modified over time so that the animal comes to substitute a rapidly acquired complex picture of the object for the innate releaser on which they depended initially.

Tinbergen experimented with the greylag goose’s fixed action pattern and found that a variety of convex objects would trigger the egg-rolling behavior in the goose. In fact, the goose preferred objects larger than eggs, preferring a volleyball over a goose egg, for example. The volleyball, in this instance, is a supernormal stimulus.

These behaviors are quite rigid. For example, the digger wasp catches crickets and returns them to its burrow, setting the cricket down about an inch from the burrow. The wasp then checks the burrow and returns for the cricket. If, while the wasp is checking the burrow, the cricket is moved by the experimenter further from the nest, the wasp moves it closer to the nest and then checks the burrow. If the experimenter keeps moving the cricket, the wasp never gets the cricket into the burrow.

Innate releasing mechanisms and fixed action patterns can be arranged in sequences so that one fixed action pattern involves stimuli which act as innate releasing mechanisms for the next fixed action pattern-sequences most easily observed in the courtship patterns of animals.

Another example of behavioral programming is imprinting, a behavior in which, for example, for a few hours after hatching, a bird responds to particular stimuli presented to it and follows the object presenting these stimuli. The bird accepts this object as a parent and, still later, will court this object.

The amplitude of the stimulus necessary to release the behavior is called its threshold. Performance of a behavior sometimes increases the threshold required for a repeat performance, for example, in copulation behavior, a phenomenon called action-specific fatigue. The animal can also habituate to the innate releasing mechanism and fail to respond to the stimulus, a phenomenon called stimulus-specific fatigue. This fatigue is presumed to occur at the neural level.

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Each fixed action pattern has its own reaction-specific energy, similar to Freud’s hydraulic model of energy (Cofer & Appley, 1964, p. 597). If the behavior pattern has not occurred for some time, then the fixed action pattern can be released by simpler and less specific stimuli. For example, dogs who do not get the opportunity to break the necks of prey, will attempt to do this with slippers or other household objects, substitlnte objects. In extreme circumstances, the fixed action pattern may occur without any external stimuli present, vacuum behavior.

SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR

Attempted suicide as an innate releasing mechanism The first review of the application of ethology to suicidal behavior was provided by Goldney

(1980). He noted that Stengel and Cook (1958), in referring to the then new work of Lorenz and Tinbergen, in a footnote in their seminal work “Attempted Suicide,” suggested that “the suicidal attempt acts very much as a ‘social release”’ (p. 117). Stengel (1962) later wrote that “the suicidal attempt functions as an alarm system and an appeal for help. It does so almost with the regularity of an ‘innate release mechanism”’ (p. 726). It is of interest that these concepts are embodied well in the title of Farberow and Shneidman’s (1961) influential book, The Cry for Help, where the suicide attempt, the innate releasing mechanism, is the stimulus which elicits a response-the fixed action pattern, in other people. The response elicited in others is evidently care-giving.

This notion was also suggested by Henderson (1974) who characterized attempted suicide as care-eliciting behavior and saw it as a developmentally primitive signal for care.’

Attempted suicide as a fixed action pattern Attempted suicide can also be seen as a fixed action pattern. In Freud’s early version of

psychoanalytic theory, there was only one source of energy for human behavior, an energy which he called libido. In this version of the theory, the natural response to frustration is to aggress against the frustrating object, that is, to become assaultive. If this outward-directed aggression is forbidden or punished, then the aggression is blocked and turned inward onto the self, resulting in depression and self-destructive behavior (Henry & Short, 1954).

However, in the later version of his theory, Freud proposed two major motivations for humans, the life and death instincts, Eros and Thanatos, fueled respectively by libido and destrudo. In this latter theory, adopted by Menninger (1938) in his theorizing about suicide, self-destructive behavior becomes a basic pattern which, in order to survive, we must control. In this view, suicidal behavior is an innate pattern of behavior-a fixed-action pattern in ethological terms.

If suicidal behavior can be viewed as a fixed action pattern, two questions arise. First, what is the innate releasing mechanism that elicits this behavior? At the most general level, stressors could be seen as the stimuli which elicit the behavior, but research has shown that the stressors which most commonly precipitate suicidal behavior vary with age, gender, and other personal characteristics (Lester, 1992).

More interestingly, from an ethological perspective, is the possibility that interpersonal

‘For such appeals to work, they must elicit altruistic or care-giving behavior in the significant others, but the lack of such behavior does not negate the ethological analogy.

100 D. Lester and R. D. Goldney

stimuli are critical in eliciting suicidal behavior, a possibility most clearly illustrated in Richman’s (1986) focus on the role of the family in both eliciting and reducing the occurrence of suicidal behavior. If this is the case, then we have sequencing, in which the behavior of one person releases the suicidal behavior pattern in another, which in turn releases care-giving behavior in the first person. Much more abstract analysis has been conducted on the dynamic interchange between the murderer and the victim (e.g. Luckenbill, 1977) than has been conducted on the interchange between the suicidal individual and his/her significant others, and this lacuna needs to be remedied in future research on suicidal behavior.

The second question is, if suicidal behavior is a fixed action pattern, what will happen when no innate releasing mechanism appears? According to ethology, fixed action patterns must be expressed from time to time. As time passes without the occurrence of the fixed action pattern, the stimuli required to release the pattern become weaker and weaker, until the pattern can occur without any releasing stimulus-vacuum behavior.

In writing about outward-directed aggression, Lorenz (1966) addressed this problem by suggesting that socially acceptable outlets must be provided for the outward expression of aggression, outlets such as contact sports and paramilitary organizations. The same may therefore be true for suicidal behavior. The society must provide socially acceptable ways for self-destructive impulses to be safely discharged, for example, in death-risking activities such as mountain climbing or in chronic and focal suicidal activities-to use Menninger’s (1938) terminology-such as drug use and self-mutilation. Just as the dog shakes a slipper rather than breaking the neck of its captured prey, perhaps people can abuse alcohol and other drugs rather than commit suicide with overdoses. From this perspective, therefore, drug abuse may be a means of preventing suicide!

Conservation-withdrawal The concept of “conservation-withdrawal” (Engel, 1962; Schmale & Engel, 1975) has

relevance to suicidal behavior (Goldney, 1980). Engel (1962) noted that mere were two opposite patterns of response to increasing external demands: mounting anxiety with the “fight or flight” reaction, or energy conservation and withdrawal. He stated that conservation- withdrawal:

in its signal function, warning of loss of supplies and exhaustion, occupies a central position in the economy of mental apparatus... it may lead to behavior to hold, cling, ingratiate, reward, force or seduce an external object so as to prevent or replace the loss and ensure a continued supply... the drive aspect is self-preservative but in a primitive ‘last ditch’ sense. (Engel, 1962, pp. 95-96)

This description appears to provide the ethological link between external stressors impinging upon susceptible individuals and their subsequent suicidal behavior. It is particularly applicable to those who take drug overdoses, by far the most common form of attempted suicide. In terms of objectively observed and described behavior, the state of conservation-withdrawal is strikingly analogous to the situation described by those who attempt suicide. Thus, experienced clinicians are familiar with the almost invariable description of suicidal persons describing their feelings at the time of attempting suicide: they do not care if they live or die, they want to escape from the situation, they cannot stand the pressure any longer, or they feel that everything is too much and they just want to escape for a while. Indeed, one could well use Engel’s words

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that the suicidal action “by its very nature involves much less of a demand on consciousness and upon the environment” (Engel, 1962, p. 94).

Descriptions of wrist-cutters also fit this pattern, since they seek solitude for their act as the tension rises, become depersonalized and find relief from the blood flow which brings them back to reality (Simpson, 1976). That there is a very adaptive side to such behavior is clearly described by Simpson (1976) who emphasized that:

far from an act of suicide, such self-mutilators commit what amounts to anti-suicide, employing the wrist-cutting as a means of gaining re-integration, re-personalization, and an emphatic return to reality and life from the state of dead unreality. (Simpson, 1976, p. 297)

Jones and Daniels (1996) have recently examined self-mutilation further from an ethological perspective and suggested that, for self-mutilators, there is an initial potential for aggression with isolation during development, followed by frustration, threat, abandonment or arousal. This may lead to aggression or, if the individual is socially isolated, self-injury may occur. They do not actually utilize any ethological principles in their theory, and we consider that the concept of “conservation-withdrawal” is useful in mediating between the feelings aroused and the subsequent self-injury (Goldney & Lester, 1997).

DISCUSSION

An ethological perspective of suicidal behavior has a number of advantages. Not the least of these is in defusing the debate about the seriousness of suicide attempts. The very nosology of suicidal behavior epitomizes the concerns that some have about the nature of suicidal behavior, where diverse classifications have arisen in an attempt to delineate motivations, intent and seriousness of suicidal acts. Attempts to avoid using the word “suicide” or “suicidal,” in such behavior tend to diminish the seriousness with which clinicians regard such behavior, and additional qualifiers such as “manipulative” similarly tend to minimize the extreme distress which persons who attempt suicide usually exhibit. There appears to be clear clinical advantages in the ethological conceptualization of suicidal behavior as conservation-withdrawal. By accepting such acts as examples of relatively undifferentiated responses to stress, cognizance is taken of the environment, the person and a variability of response with mixed motivations and feelings. Such a formulation more readily allows a non-judgmental approach to the suicidal person, with acceptance of both the appeal and the wish to die components. Indeed, the concept of conservation-withdrawal provides a more secure ontological base for our understanding of the “cry for help” component of suicidal behavior.

It is interesting to reflect that, for such an appeal component to succeed, altruism in other persons must be evoked. That this does not always occur is readily observed in the busy general hospital setting, and also in the descriptions of many patients whose suicide attempt may be made in the context of overt rejection by others. However, this does not negate the ethological analogy, as there is ample evidence that altruistic responses are not invariably elicited in other species. Trivers (1971) has argued that altruism is in fact reciprocally altruistic, as natural selection favors those actions which in the long term benefit the organism performing them. There is, therefore, a balance between “altruistic” and “cheating” tendencies, a balance which when applied to suicidal behavior is frequently reflected in the ambivalence reported by

102 D. Lester and R. D. Goldney

therapists and significant others, who at times feel that they may be manipulated by those who are suicidal.

In further regard to the issue of natural selection and altruistic behavior, it may be relevant that the preponderance of young women among those who attempt suicide may be because sexually mature young women have the greatest reproductive value, with their appeals being more likely to be met altruistically in terms of natural selection.

The concept of conservation-withdrawal may also offer some insight into the strong association between drug dependence and suicidal behavior. Most drugs which are abused produce a state which is akin to that described by conservation-withdrawal with “less of a demand on consciousness and upon the environment.” Society has increasingly provided the means to facilitate the production of this state with alcohol and other drugs, and the increase in both drug abuse and suicidal behavior is, therefore, hardly unexpected.

It must be acknowledged that the application of analogies from other disciplines can never be entirely satisfactory. However, there are persuasive theoretical and clinical reasons to utilize concepts such as conservation-withdrawal in our understanding of suicidal behavior. There have been many theories of suicidal behavior, none of them satisfactory. In fact, over 20 years ago, Neuringer (1974) in referring to what he described as a “non-theory of suicide,” observed that:

it may be more productive to think of suicide not as the arbiter of behavior, but of it as the behavior itself; a behavior that may be invoked by any of a large class of stimuli and mediators... suicidal behavior ought to be thought of as a general response tendency having in different people a differential place in the response tendency hierarchy, and which can be evoked by a wide variety of conditions. (p. 227)

The concept of conservation-withdrawal seems to provide the ontological link between this general theory and observed suicidal behavior. Far from being a “non-theory,” and despite its general nature, an ethological view may be the most parsimonious explanation of suicidal behavior that we have at present.

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