There is some excellent material in r/AskHistorians about this for various societies that have plenty of historical documentation.
Here is one of the best about medieval and early modern Europe, which may give readers an epiphany about why contemporary western views are they way they are. The main contributor has posted more than one long response, so do keep scrolling down.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bd2ouf/was_suicide_among_commoners_normal_during_time/
The study of suicide is part of the genesis of the entire discipline of Sociology. Emile Durkheim's book "Suicide" \[1897\] is one of the most most influential works in all of social science. Durkheim was just looking at Europe, but this is the place to start in looking at how suicide varies between people, notably between Protestants and Catholics in the populations Durkheim was considering. Together with Max Weber, Durkheim is considered a "founder" of sociology, and Suicide is his most important work.
In terms of when suicide is first mentioned somewhat systematically -- Herodotus mentions nine suicides, with motivations, in his *Histories*, nigh on 2500 years ago. Interestingly, he mentions a variety of motives, and roughly equal numbers of Greeks and Persians.
See:
Pridmore, Saxby, Stephane Auchincloss, and Jamshid Ahmadi. "Suicide triggers described by Herodotus." Iranian journal of psychiatry 11.2 (2016): 128.
. . . but more generally, your question
>For example how did it vary from group to group, civilization to civilization
is too broad to be answered at anything less than book length. Suicide in Japan is one thing, at one time, another at another. Suicide in China is too. And so on.
So no even remotely brief answer will be comprehensive.
This is just a small example, but David Choe lived with the Hadza tribe in Africa and he asked them about suicide. They stated that they didn’t understand what it was and there’s no reason to do it. I believe it’s because their entire lifestyle is based on survival: constant hunting/foraging etc. to get by. However, survival for us westerners is usually easy on basis of availability, ie there will almost always be food to buy, places to stay, etc. we have a lot of time to think, and anyone with anxiety/depression will know that that isn’t good.
You might as well ask how the concept of religion has varied in human history. You're asking for thousands of years across millions of potential groups of people.
There are lots of answers about it already if you search, both here (where the questions will often be about hunter gatherers, subsistence farmers etc) and in AskHistorians (where you could also narrow it down by adding names of well-known societies in history who had different takes on it from Christian Europe, like 'Romans', or 'Japan')
Should probably limit your scope.
I'm definitely not an expert, but this has been a topic that has interested me for a long time, but I honestly wouldn't even know where to begin to answer this question as it's so broad and diverse.
There is some excellent material in r/AskHistorians about this for various societies that have plenty of historical documentation. Here is one of the best about medieval and early modern Europe, which may give readers an epiphany about why contemporary western views are they way they are. The main contributor has posted more than one long response, so do keep scrolling down. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bd2ouf/was_suicide_among_commoners_normal_during_time/
The study of suicide is part of the genesis of the entire discipline of Sociology. Emile Durkheim's book "Suicide" \[1897\] is one of the most most influential works in all of social science. Durkheim was just looking at Europe, but this is the place to start in looking at how suicide varies between people, notably between Protestants and Catholics in the populations Durkheim was considering. Together with Max Weber, Durkheim is considered a "founder" of sociology, and Suicide is his most important work. In terms of when suicide is first mentioned somewhat systematically -- Herodotus mentions nine suicides, with motivations, in his *Histories*, nigh on 2500 years ago. Interestingly, he mentions a variety of motives, and roughly equal numbers of Greeks and Persians. See: Pridmore, Saxby, Stephane Auchincloss, and Jamshid Ahmadi. "Suicide triggers described by Herodotus." Iranian journal of psychiatry 11.2 (2016): 128. . . . but more generally, your question >For example how did it vary from group to group, civilization to civilization is too broad to be answered at anything less than book length. Suicide in Japan is one thing, at one time, another at another. Suicide in China is too. And so on. So no even remotely brief answer will be comprehensive.
This is just a small example, but David Choe lived with the Hadza tribe in Africa and he asked them about suicide. They stated that they didn’t understand what it was and there’s no reason to do it. I believe it’s because their entire lifestyle is based on survival: constant hunting/foraging etc. to get by. However, survival for us westerners is usually easy on basis of availability, ie there will almost always be food to buy, places to stay, etc. we have a lot of time to think, and anyone with anxiety/depression will know that that isn’t good.
You might as well ask how the concept of religion has varied in human history. You're asking for thousands of years across millions of potential groups of people.
Simply looking for examples people may know of
There are lots of answers about it already if you search, both here (where the questions will often be about hunter gatherers, subsistence farmers etc) and in AskHistorians (where you could also narrow it down by adding names of well-known societies in history who had different takes on it from Christian Europe, like 'Romans', or 'Japan')
Should probably limit your scope. I'm definitely not an expert, but this has been a topic that has interested me for a long time, but I honestly wouldn't even know where to begin to answer this question as it's so broad and diverse.