I’m currently reading a rather fascinating book called Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert B. Cialdini, PH.D. and last week I read in it something both astonishing and disturbing. Every time there is a well-publicised case of suicide in the media, there invariably follows a dramatic increase, not only in copycat suicides, but in reported car and plane accidents as well. Why might it be more dangerous to travel by road or air immediately following a well-publicised suicide? Could it be that the same socio-economic conditions that contributed to the motivation for suicide, led to an increase in carelessness at the wheel or joystick? It appears not, because the spikes in the number of accidents correlate, not with the number of suicides, but with the amount of publicity these suicides receive, and it appears highest in the areas where publicity is greatest. OK then, could it be that reading about suicide makes people more careless and therefore more prone to accidents? Again, another detail hidden in the statistics suggests that it’s actually far more disturbing than this.  When the suicide reported in the media is a simple one-person act of destruction, then the type of car and plane accidents increasing the most, also tend to involve only single victims. However, when the publicised suicide victim has taken others with him, there tends to be a marked increase in accidents with multiple fatalities. What could possibly explain this? It was the sociologist, David P Phillips, who in 1974 hit upon a possible, somewhat worrying explanation –...