xtent that they become internalized by individuals while continuing to exist outside of them (Coser, pg. 129). Social facts contain several characteristics. One characteristic is constraint. Constraint is the ability to condition an individual to conform to society. For example, a person will receive a traffic ticket if they go over the speed limit. The ticket is the act of constraint because it is used as a way to force the person to adhere to the law that has been imposed. A second characteristic is generality. Generality is something that is potentially universal and diffused with a group. Again, using the speeding ticket as the example, the generality is that the speed limit applies to all persons that possess a valid driver's license.A final characteristic included in social facts is externality, which constitutes a reality sui-generis outside of any individual. For example, when a child is born, it is born without any constraints. Among others, cleanliness, obedience, and respect are imposed on the child from the time they are born. These are social facts that are external to the child.This discussion leads us to the work of Emile Durkheim, specifically, his work with the socially confusing subject of suicide. Durkheim conducted an extensive study on suicide based on the hypothesis that suicide rates increase as the degree of social unity and regulation of the individual by the group decreases. Let's examine this more closely. Durkheim believed that the explanation of suicide as an individual act was inadequate and that he could demonstrate, through the use of statistical data, that there are social causes of suicide. The larger social forces that exist can account for a social fact, or a phenomenon, that on the surface appears to be solely individual. This was the methodology of Durkheim's Suicide study. This methodology was unique because, as Coser states on page 130,the utilization of statistical data to show that...
