Sociological imagination is the “quality of mind” (Mills, 1959: p. 4) that enables us to look outside our everyday life and see the entire society as we were an outsider with the benefit of acknowledge of human and social behaviour. It allows us to see how society shapes and influences our life experiences. Is the ability to see the general in the particular and to “defamiliarise the familiar” (Bauman 1990: p. 15). According to C. Wright Mills, it “enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals” (Mills, 1959: p. 5). These …show more content…
Sociological imagination also makes us aware of suicide and demonstrates how social forces affect human behavior. Suicide is “not just a medical or psychological problem of the individual. It is more than that – it is a problem of society” (Caroline Smyth, Malcolm MacLachlan and Anthony Clare: p. 4). Durkheim, found that social influences rather than personal caused the higher rates of suicide; but there might exist inclinations that vary from country to country. In order to explain these differences, Durkheim examined social integration. He found that when social integration is relatively low, suicide rates tend to be higher. Let’s take an example of men, Protestants, wealthy people and unmarried; each have higher rate of suicide than woman, Roman Catholics, Jews, the poor and the married people. Looking at the graph of global suicide