What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?: An Agent-Based Approach to Self-Evaluation, Interpersonal Loss, and Suicide Ideation

Social surroundings greatly affect how we perceive ourselves. Examining the network of social relations may help us reveal important information about our psyche. We build on this idea and propose a model that is consistent with social psychological theories and connects individuals’ emotional states with their social relations. The model consists of a social network of agents. Using a centrality-based measure of self-evaluation, the model quantifies the amount of interpersonal loss experienced by agents as their social relations change. Applying this model, we analyze interpersonal loss of agents in standard network structures under different conditions. We then draw a link to suicide and discuss two real-world suicide incidents. Finally, we simulate dynamics of large random networks and investigate how network structures affect suicide ideation and its possible cascades.