Celebrity Suicides and the Werther Effect – Evidence From Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

<b></b> <i>Background:</i> Meta-analytic evidence indicates that there tends to be an increase in suicides in the period after news reporting on celebrity suicides. Importantly, this evidence relies on original research, including present-day celebrities who died by suicide. <i>Aim:</i> The present paper supplements this perspective by providing historical evidence, testing whether celebrity suicide news was related to increases in suicides in fin-de-siècle Vienna (1890-1913). <i>Method:</i> Significant figures (<i>N</i> = 58) were identified using the Austrian Biographical Dictionary. Civil death registers for the city of Vienna were used to identify suicides occurring in periods immediately after a given celebrity's death (and in the control periods). A content analysis assessed media attention. <i>Results:</i> Media attention was positively related to increases in suicides, a finding consistent with the Werther effect hypothesis. However, the analysis indicated that only one suicide with massive media attention drove this association - Colonel Redl's suicide in 1913. <i>Limitations:</i> Causal interpretations are limited. <i>Conclusion:</i> Colonel Redl's suicide seems to hold a special historical position. This historical evidence supplements the available meta-analytic evidence on celebrity suicide news effects occurring today.