The correlation
between hate speech and suicide rates remains constant even after taking
into account the suicide rate in a group’s country
of origin and the group’s size within the United States, say Brian
Mullen, Ph.D., and Joshua M. Smyth, Ph.D., of Syracuse University.
It is unclear from the study whether such hate speech is indicative of
societal pressures and discrimination that might contribute to higher suicide
rates among immigrants or whether the name-calling itself is directly responsible
for the increased rates.
Mullen says, however, “There is growing awareness
that this type of ethnic discrimination operates as a stressor and can
have a variety
of deleterious consequences.”
The study looked at ethnic slurs used to describe 10 European immigrant
groups during the 1950s. The researchers compared the variety of slurs
and their negativity to suicide rates for the groups in their native countries
and during their first generation in the United States.
Mullen and Smyth collected information on the English,
Germans, Hungarians, Irish, Italians, Norwegians, Polish, Scots, Swedes
and Welsh between
1951 and 1960. Two judges reviewed the variety of insulting names given
to each
group and scored them based on their “negativity.”
For instance, “dumb Polack” was considered quite negative,
while “Taffy,” a nickname based on the Welsh “Daffydd
or David,” was considered less offensive.
The negativity, rather than the variety of slurs used to describe a group,
was a good predictor of immigrant suicide rates, the researchers concluded.
