Abstract
Researchers have established a relationship between exposure to nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), and increased probability of engaging in the behavior, but few have endeavored to explain the mechanisms underlying the relationship. We drew on Social Cognitive Theory to argue that core cognitions, including NSSI outcome expectancies and self-efficacy expectancies, moderate this relationship. We also explored whether knowledge about NSSI and attitudes toward the behavior played a role in this relationship. A sample of 389 university students (73.1 % female, M age = 20.90, SD = 2.36), completed online questionnaires assessing the constructs of interest. Our findings support the application of Social Cognitive Theory to better understanding NSSI, with clear links between expectancies, self-efficacy and NSSI. Further, these cognitions moderated a number of exposure-NSSI relationships. Implications of these findings for theory, research and intervention are discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
It is customary in Australia for students to remain at home rather than travel away to college.
At the suggestion of an anonymous reviewer we conducted a parallel analysis with 1000 samples (O’Connor 2000), using R-Menu v2 in SPSS (Courtney 2013), to confirm the number of factors for extraction. Initial analysis with all 42 items suggested five factors be extracted. After removal of items with poor loadings and communalities we conducted the analyses again with the remaining 23 items; 6 factors were suggested. Examination of the factor loadings when 6 factors were requested revealed the same three factors as outlined above. The additional three factors were primarily composed of the same items but with negative factor loadings. Consequently we believe the three factors we extracted in the Exploratory Factor Analysis are an accurate representation of the factor structure of our measure.
Given a large proportion of our self-injury group had not self-injured in the previous 12 months, we conducted exploratory analyses assessing differences in the cognitive variables between participants who did not self-injure, those who had not self-injured in the prior 12 months and those who had self-injured in the last year. No differences between the self-injuring groups were noted except in self-efficacy to resist NSSI.
References
Aguinis, H., & Stone, R. E. F. (1997). Methodological artefacts in moderated multiple regression and their effects on statistical power. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 192–206.
Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. California: Sage.
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211.
Albert, D., Chein, J., & Steinberg, L. (2013). Peer influences on adolescent decision making. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22, 114–120.
Arnett, J. J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 55, 469–480.
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37, 122–147.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. NJ: Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social cognitive theory. American Psychologist, 44, 1175–1184.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W. H. Freeman and Co.
Bentley, K. H., Barlow, D. H., & Nock, M. (2014). The four-function model of non-suicidal self-injury: Key directions for future research. Clinical Psychological Science, 2, 638–656.
Berger, E., Reupert, A., & Hasking, P. (2015). Pre-service and in-service teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and confidence towards self-injury among students. Journal of Education for Teaching, 41, 37–51.
Brown, S. A., Goldman, M. S., & Christiansen, B. A. (1985). Do alcohol expectancies mediate drinking patterns of adults? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 53, 512–519.
Brown, S. A., Goldman, M. S., Inn, A., & Anderson, L. R. (1980). Expectations of reinforcement from alcohol: Their domain and relation to drinking patterns. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 48, 419–426.
Chapman, A. L., Gratz, K. L., & Brown, M. Z. (2006). Solving the puzzle of deliberate self-harm: The experiential avoidance model. Behavior Research and Therapy, 44, 371–394.
Courtney, M. G. R. (2013). Determining the number of factors to retain in EFA: Using the SPSS R-Menu v2.0 to make more judicious estimations. Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation, 18, 1–14.
Curcio, A. L., Mak, A. S., George, A. S., & George, A. M. (in press). Predictors of delinquency among adolescents and young adults: A new psychosocial control perspective. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology.
Czyz, E. K., Bohnert, A. S., King, C. A., Price, A. M., Kleinberg, F., & Ilgen, M. A. (2014). Self-efficacy to avoid suicidal action: Factor structure and convergent validity among adults in substance use disorder treatment. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 44, 698–709.
Darkes, J., & Goldman, M. S. (1998). Expectancy challenge and drinking reduction: Process and structure in the alcohol expectancy network. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 6, 64–76.
Deliberto, T. L., & Nock, M. K. (2008). An exploratory study of correlates, onset, and offset of non-suicidal self-injury. Archives of Suicide Research, 12, 219–231.
Eisenberg, D., Hunt, J., & Speer, N. (2013). Mental health in American colleges and universities: Variation across student subgroups and across campuses. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 201, 60–67.
Greenfield, S. F., Hufford, M. R., Vagge, L. M., Muenz, L. R., Costello, M. E., & Weiss, R. D. (2000). The relationship of self-efficacy expectancies to relapse among alcohol dependent men and women: A prospective study. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 61, 345–351.
Hasking, P., Andrews, T., & Martin, G. (2013). The role of exposure to self-injury among peers in predicting later self-injury. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 42, 1543–1556.
Hasking, P. A., Momeni, R., Swannell, S., & Chia, S. (2008). The nature and extent of deliberate self-injury in a non-clinical sample of young adults. Archives of Suicide Research, 12, 208–218.
Heath, N. L., Ross, S., Toste, J. R., Charlebois, A., & Nedecheva, T. (2009). Retrospective analysis of social factors and nonsuicidal self-injury among young adults. Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science, 41, 180.
Heath, N. L., Toste, J. R., Sornberger, M. J., & Wagner, C. (2011). Teachers’ perceptions of non-suicidal self-injury in the schools. School Mental Health, 3, 35–43.
Joiner, T. (1999). The clustering and contagion of suicide. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 89–92.
Jones, B. T., Corbin, W., & Fromme, K. (2001). A review of expectancy theory and alcohol consumption. Addiction, 96, 57–72.
Kadden, R. M., & Litt, M. D. (2011). The role of self-efficacy in the treatment of substance use disorders. Addictive Behaviors, 36, 1120–1126.
Klonsky, E. D., & Glenn, C. R. (2009). Assessing the functions of non-suicidal self-injury: Psychometric properties of the Inventory of Statements About Self-injury (ISAS). Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 31, 215–219.
Klonsky, E. D., & Olino, T. M. (2008). Identifying clinically distinct subgroups of self-injurers among young adults: A latent class analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76, 22.
Kokaliari, E. D. (2014). An exploratory study of the nature and extent of nonsuicidal self-injury among college women. International Journal of Population Research. Article ID 879269.
Lee, N. K., Greely, J., & Oei, T. P. (1999). The relationship of positive and negative alcohol expectancies to patterns of consumption of alcohol in social drinkers. Addictive Behaviors, 24, 359–369.
Lee, N. K., Oei, T. P., Greeley, J. D., & Baglioni, A. J, Jr. (2003). Psychometric properties of the Drinking Expectancy Questionnaire: A review of the factor structure and a proposed new scoring method. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 64, 432–436.
Lewis, S. P., & Seko, Y. (2016). A double-edged sword: A review of the potential benefits and risks of onine non-suicidal self-injury activities. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 72, 249–262.
Lovibond, S. H., & Lovibond, P. F. (1995). Manual for the depression anxiety stress scales (2nd ed.). Sydney: Psychology Foundation.
McKenzie, K. C., & Gross, J. J. (2014). Nonsuicidal self-injury: An emotion regulation perspective. Psychopathology, 47, 207–219.
Muehlenkamp, J. J., Claes, L., Havertape, L., & Plener, P. L. (2012). International prevalence of adolescent non-suicidal self-injury and deliberate self-harm. Child abd Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 6, 1–9.
Muehlenkamp, J. J., Claes, L., Quigley, K., Prosser, E., Claes, S., & Jans, D. (2013). Association of training on attitudes towards self-injuring clients across health professionals. Archives of Suicide Research, 17, 462–468.
Nixon, M. K., Cloutier, P., & Jansson, S. M. (2008). Nonsuicidal self-harm in youth: A population-based survey. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 178, 306–312.
Nock, M. K. (2009). Why do people hurt themselves? New insights into the nature and functions of self-injury. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 78–83.
Nock, M. K., & Banaji, M. R. (2007). Prediction of suicide ideation and attempts among adolescents using a brief performance-based test. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75, 707–715.
Nock, M. K., Park, J. M., Finn, C. T., Deliberto, T. L., Dour, H. J., & Banaji, M. R. (2010). Measuring the “suicidal mind:” Implicit cognition predicts suicidal behavior. Psychological Science, 21, 511–517.
O’Connor, B. P. (2000). SPSS and SAS programs for determining the number of components using parallel analysis and Velicer’s MAP test. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 32, 396–402.
O’Connor, R. C., & Armitage, C. J. (2003). Theory of planned behavior and parasuicide: An exploratory study. Current Psychology, 22, 196–205.
Oei, T. P., & Baldwin, A. R. (1994). Expectancy theory: A two-process model of alcohol use and abuse. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 55, 525–534.
Perkins, W. H. (2002). Social norms and the prevention of alcohol misuse in collegiate contexts. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Supplementary, 14, 164–172.
Perneger, T. V. (1998). What’s wrong with Bonferroni adjustments. British Medical Journal, 316, 1236–1238.
Prinstein, M. J., Heilbron, N., Guerry, J. D., Franklin, J. C., Rancourt, D., Simon, V., & Spirito, A. (2010). Peer influence and nonsuicidal self-injury: Longitudinal results in community and clinically-referred adolescent samples. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 38, 669–682.
Radovic, S., & Hasking, P. (2013). The relationship between film portrayals of non-suicidal self-injury, attitudes, knowledge and behaviour. Crisis, 34, 324–334.
Rothman, K. J. (1990). No adjustments are needed for multiple comparisons. Epidemiology, 1, 43–46.
Schmidtke, A., & Häfner, H. (1988). The Werther effect after television films: New evidence for an old hypothesis. Psychological Medicine, 18, 665–676.
Selby, E. A., & Joiner, T. E. (2009). Cascades of emotion: The emergence of borderline personality disorder from emotional and behavioral dysregulation. Review of General Psychology, 13, 219–229.
Steinberg, L., & Monahan, K. C. (2007). Age differences in resistance to peer influence. Developmental Psychology, 43, 1531–1543.
Swannell, S., Martin, G., Krysinska, K., Kay, T., Olsson, K., & Win, A. (2010). Cutting on-line: Self-injury and the internet. Advances in Mental Health, 9, 177–189.
Swannell, S. V., Martin, G. E., Page, A., Hasking, P., & St John, N. J. (2014). Prevalence of nonsuicidal self-injury in nonclinical samples: Systematic review, meta-analysis and meta regression. Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior, 44, 273–303.
Tatnell, R., Kelada, L., Hasking, P., & Martin, G. (2014). Longitudinal analysis of adolescent NSSI: The role of intrapersonal and interpersonal factors. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 42, 885–896.
Trewavas, C., Hasking, P. A., & McAllister, M. (2010). Representations of non-suicidal self-injury in motion pictures. Archives of Suicide Research, 14, 89–103.
Warm, A., Murray, C., & Fox, J. (2003). Why do people self-harm? Psychological Health & Medicine, 8, 72–79.
Whitlock, J., Muehlenkamp, J., Eckenrode, J., Purington, A., Abrams, G. B., & Barriera, P. (2013). Nonsuicidal self-injury as a gateway to suicide in young adults. Journal of Adolescent Health, 52, 486–492.
Wilcox, H. C., Arria, A. M., Caldeira, K. M., Vincent, K. B., Pinchevsky, G. M., & O’Grady, K. E. (2012). Longitudinal predictors of past-year non-suicidal self-injury and motives among college students. Psychological Medicine, 1, 1–10.
Author’s Contributions
P.H. conceptualised the study, oversaw data collection, analysed data and prepared sections of the written manuscript. A.R. collected data, provided intellectual input to the study and prepared sections of the written manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding
This study was internally funded by The School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee, the National Health and Medical Research Council’s National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hasking, P., Rose, A. A Preliminary Application of Social Cognitive Theory to Nonsuicidal Self-Injury. J Youth Adolescence 45, 1560–1574 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0449-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0449-7