Carrying Capacity Erosion Dynamics: How Can Students' Workload Bring Them Gradually to Their Knees?

摘要

A few months ago, public opinion was deeply affected by the news of committing suicide of a girl Ph.D. student in Iran. Unfortunately, it is not a rare case limited to a university or a country, in a way we witness such tragic events once in a while from around the world. Based on the report of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), one UK student dies by suicide every four days. Also, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds. That event invoked me to do research maybe I could alleviate this problem by using system dynamics. The main goal of the study is gaining insight into the factors and mechanisms that are responsible for committing suicide of students. For this purpose, we will use Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (IPTS) to show how "mental pressure" stemming from "workload" and "loneliness" can gradually erode the carrying capacity and make a student prone to commit suicide. We applied qualitative system dynamics method to map the broad feedback mechanism of Carrying Capacity Erosion. The result is a casual loop diagram which defines 12 key reinforcing feedback loops, involving in increasing mental pressure, and three balancing feedback loops which in total can produce overshoot and collapse structure and behavior. Future research is needed to expand upon this initial model of suicide dynamics. Quantitative extensions may result in a better understanding and contribute to personalized methods of evaluation, prevention and intervention.