Abstract
The current study examined the extent to which an expanded self-punitiveness model could be applied to deliberate self-harm (DSH) among students making the transition to university. Specific components of the self-punitiveness model included perfectionism, overgeneralization, self-criticism, and shame. A sample of 319 university students completed a measure of deliberate self-harm as well as two multidimensional perfectionism measures and measures of self-criticism, overgeneralization, and shame. Correlational analyses found few significant associations among deliberate self-harm and the self-punitiveness factors among men. In contrast, among women, deliberate self-harm was associated with dimensions of trait perfectionism such as parental criticism and socially prescribed perfectionism, as well as with overgeneralization, self-criticism, and both characterological shame and bodily shame with the strongest associations found with shame. Supplementary analyses found a strong link between overgeneralization and shame and an association between self-criticism and shame among women. The results support the contention that particularly among young women making the transition to university, deliberate self-harm behavior is a reflection of a self-punitive personality orientation with multiple facets and a sense of shame associated with an overgeneralized sense of failing to meet social expectations.
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Funding for this project was provided by a grant from the Canadian Auto Workers. Support for this study was also provided by a Canada Research Chair in Personality and Health to Gordon Flett, a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Emerging Team award from the Violence, Gender, and Health Program to Christine Wekerle (Principal Investigator) and Gordon Flett (Co-Investigator), and a Career Award from the Ontario Women’s Health Council/CIHR Institute of Gender and Health Joint Program to Christine Wekerle. We would like to thank Simon Sherry for his helpful comments and suggestions.
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Flett, G.L., Goldstein, A.L., Hewitt, P.L. et al. Predictors of Deliberate Self-Harm Behavior Among Emerging Adolescents: An Initial Test of a Self-Punitiveness Model. Curr Psychol 31, 49–64 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-012-9130-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-012-9130-9