Werther’s Effect: A Brief Review

Abstract

Suicide by a prominent public figure often leads to extensive, sensational media coverage. There are always concerns about whether such reporting has any influence on further suicides. Durkheim, Lester, Phillips,and other researchers had a different saying on imitative suicides. Various anecdotal shreds of evidence, studies, and meta-analyses now established media portrayal of suicide as an independent risk factor of further suicides in society. Philips termed this phenomenon as the “Werther effect” after the main character in Goethe’s novel “The sorrows of young Werther.” In this review, we discuss the Werther effect, its postulated mechanism, some statistical considerations, the group at risk, and essential variables of this phenomenon, along with recent media guidelines.