creators_name: Cernat, Vasile
type: preprint
datestamp: 2000-11-05
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:25
metadata_visibility: show
title: A Coherence Optimization Model of Suicide
subjects: clin-psy
subjects: cog-psy
subjects: soc-psy
full_text_status: public
keywords: suicidal thoughts, suicide rates, coherence optimization, constraint satisfaction, neural network
abstract: This article describes a model that approaches both individual and social dimensions of suicide. At the individual level, the model construes suicidal thoughts as optimization of coherence between relevant cognitive unit sets (i.e. collections of interrelated cognitive units that focus on a particular external or internal object). It assumes that suicidal thoughts are mostly affected by the manner individuals construe their egos, their economic, relational, professional, and health situations, as well as life, death, and suicide.  At the social level, the model argues that suicide rates depend on the distributions of these cognitive unit sets and of the connections between them. The model has been implemented in a computer program that simulates important characteristics of suicide rates.
date: 2000
date_type: published
refereed: FALSE
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citation:   Cernat, Vasile  (2000) A Coherence Optimization Model of Suicide.  [Preprint]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/1081/1/coherencesuicide.htm