So we focus attention on some of the behaviors on the very dark side of the spectrum of hopefulness and optimism, which is suicidal behaviors.

我们研究了与抱有希望和乐观极其黑暗的一面相关的行为 也就是自杀行为

When we dug into that literature, we saw the importance of suicide as a cause of death for young people,

当我们深入研究时 会发现自杀是年轻人死亡的一大因素

and for teenagers it’s the number two cause of death for, I think, ages 15 to 19 in the United States.

而且它是美国15岁到19岁青少年的第二大致死因素

A lot of the scholarship that’s focused on suicide has focused on individual risk factors—both genetics and the presence of physical and emotional pain—

很多关于自杀的知识都会关注个人风险因素——包括遗传学、身体和情感痛苦——

and what we wanted to do is think a little bit broader about social contagion and social processes related to suicide.

我们想做的就是多多思考与自杀相关的社会传染性和社会历程

Processes of social contagion and suicide have also been understudied because social contagion and social processes for adolescent suicide often come up in the news

人们一直在研究社会传染和自杀的过程 因为每当有名人自杀时

when a celebrity commits suicide, and there are public policies for the media not to report celebrity suicides

新闻中就会出现青少年自杀的社会传染和社会历程 有公共政策要求媒体不得报道名人自杀事件

in order to not have spikes of adolescents committing suicide as copycatting.

以免导致青少年效仿名人自杀

More recently the media has being trained that if there is a celebrity suicide to report the story

最近 媒体经过训练后知道 如果有名人自杀 可以进行报道

but also report hotlines and information for adolescents who are feeling the same way.

但同时也要为有自杀念头的青少年报道热线电话和信息

So there’s a lot of public policy interest in the potential for contagion and suicide.

所以公共政策对传染和自杀可能产生的影响极感兴趣

So we focused some attention on that in our study, too.

我们在研究中也关注了这一点

So what we did was we surveyed data that had information on suicide, and to think about social processes,

我们调查了与自杀有关的信息 思考了社会历程

we found data that had not just your own suicidal attempts or suicidality but also whether or not family members had recently committed suicide.

不光寻找了自己有自杀念头或自杀倾向的数据 还寻找了最近是否有家庭成员自杀的数据

And our thinking was in order to trace a social process we wanted to see, in some sense, patient zero—

我们想要追踪一个在某种程度上零病人的社会历程

which would be a family member having committed suicide—and then trace that through an adolescent social network.

也就是一名家庭成员已经自杀 然后将其追溯回青春期的社会网络关系

So we measured family suicides that occurred in a previous year.

我们测试了前一年发生的家庭自杀案例

We examined the impact on the adolescents in the families that had family suicides, but then we pivoted and asked the question:

也调查了自杀行为对该家庭中青少年的影响 但随后我们转向问了这样一个问题：

do those family processes spill over into the classroom?

这些家庭过程会蔓延到教室里吗？

So we examined the impact of having a classmate who had a family member commit suicide in the last year.

于是我们测试了如果你的同班同学家里前一年有人自杀 这对你会有什么影响

And, again, we found very large effects that seemed to work through having a classmate’s family member commit suicide,

我们再一次发现 拥有一个家庭成员自杀了的同班同学

affecting the classmate him or herself, it then spills over into the classroom on the suicidal behaviors of those who are not directly affected.

会很大程度地影响到这个同学本身 然后这种自杀行为又会扩散到那些间接受影响的人身上

And the other surprising finding in that study was that these pathways between a family member committing suicide,

另一项令人惊讶的发现是 家庭成员自杀

an adolescent increasing their suicidality and then spilling over into the classroom is that that process only follows gender lines,

青少年增加自杀倾向 然后将其传染给同班同学 这三者之间的关系只跟性别有关

meaning that if I’m a female student in a classroom it only matters to me whether females in my classroom had family members who’ve committed suicide.

也就是说 如果我是个女生 那么只有同班的女性同学家里是否有人自杀才能影响到我

Having males in my classroom who had family members commit suicide does not affect my suicidality.

班里的男同学家里有人自杀并不会增加我的自杀倾向

So it’s a very intriguing and surprising finding.

这个发现很有趣很惊人

It says something both on the potential for spillovers for contagion in suicide but also that it’s a little bit more complicated

这不光说明了自杀的传染蔓延潜力 还表明这比较复杂

because once it moves into the classroom I think these suicide contagions take advantage of preexisting networks

因为一旦进入教室 那么这种自杀传染力就会利用早已存在的社会关系

where girls are friends with girls and boys are friends with boys inside classrooms,

也就是一个班内 女生跟女生是朋友 男生和男生是朋友

and when a bad thing happens to a classmate’s family then that news and those effects seem to travel on gender-specific lines.

如果某位同学的家里发生了不幸 那么这种消息和影响只会在同性之间扩散传播

And similar to the child abuse examination where we found that family members or family processes spilled into the classroom,

与儿童虐待测试相似 我们发现家庭成员或家庭过程会蔓延到教室里

there’s a policy implication here that successful suicide prevention programs have this potential for spilling over on people who aren’t treated themselves or who aren’t intervened on themselves.

这里有种政策意义 成功阻止自杀的项目会扩散到没有主动接受治疗或主动接受干预的人身上

If you can successfully prevent a suicide in a family member that actually reduces the likelihood of a suicide attempt in both the adolescent in the family but also the adolescent’s classmates.

如果你能成功阻止一名家庭成员自杀 这会减少这个家庭中的青少年及青少年班级里的自杀倾向

So again this has the possibility of a larger bang for your buck where you spend money to reduce suicide or spend money to prevent suicide in a single family

所以这可能对你花钱减少自杀或阻止某个家庭自杀的收益大有裨益

but you gain the benefits of both the family and the classmates of the family.

因为你得到的是这个家庭以及家庭成员班级的收益