Abstract
Background: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) behavior among college students is a focus of attention in current society. In the information era, the Internet serves as a public health concern and as an effective pathway for prevention. In order to reduce NSSI behavior, we explore its influence factors, especially the relations between neuroticism, emotion regulation (ER), depression, and NSSI behavior. Methods: A total of 450 college students were surveyed with the Big Five Inventory-2, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Self-Rating Depression Scale, and Adolescent Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Assessment Questionnaire. Results: Regression analysis showed that neuroticism significantly negatively predicted emotion regulation, while it positively predicted depression and NSSI. Multiple mediation modeling demonstrated that neuroticism and emotion regulation had no significant direct effects on NSSI. However, neuroticism could indirectly affect NSSI through four pathways of multiple mediating effects, including depression, cognitive reappraisal-depression, expressive suppression-depression, and cognitive reappraisal-expressive suppression-depression. Conclusions: Neuroticism positively predicts depression and NSSI behavior, and affects NSSI through the mediating effect of ER and depression. Therefore, amelioration of neuroticism from the perspectives of emotion regulation and depression is recommended, so as to reduce NSSI behavior among college students with highly neurotic personalities.
Highlights
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is defined as the deliberate, self-inflicted destruction and self-punishment of body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially sanctioned, including behaviors such as cutting, burning, biting, and scratching skin [1,2].According to the general strain theory (GST) brought forward by Agnew, external stressful events or situations can trigger negative emotions—such as anxiety, depression, anger etc.—and to release those negative emotions, individuals tend to react by attacking others or injuring themselves [3]
All items of each questionnaire were taken as the entries of exploratory factor analysis, and the results showed that the first factor only explained 14.63% of the bias, lower than the critical standard of 40%, indicating that there was no serious common method bias in this study [30]
The results demonstrate that gender differences exist for these variables, suggesting that they may exist in the following analysis of regression effects and mediating effects between variables
Summary
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is defined as the deliberate, self-inflicted destruction and self-punishment of body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially sanctioned, including behaviors such as cutting, burning, biting, and scratching skin [1,2].According to the general strain theory (GST) brought forward by Agnew, external stressful events or situations can trigger negative emotions—such as anxiety, depression, anger etc.—and to release those negative emotions, individuals tend to react by attacking others or injuring themselves [3]. Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is defined as the deliberate, self-inflicted destruction and self-punishment of body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially sanctioned, including behaviors such as cutting, burning, biting, and scratching skin [1,2]. Information on self-injury motivation or methods are available online, exposure to such information may increase the risk of NSSI behavior among highly neurotic individuals. In a sample of over 3500 school pupils, O’Connor et al found that 18% of those who had self-harmed indicated the Internet or social networking sites influenced their decision to engage in self-harm. The Internet has, to a certain degree, prompted NSSI behavior, leading to an increasing incidence of NSSI behavior in recent years [4]. A meta-analysis showed that the aggregate lifetime and 12-month prevalence of NSSI in children and adolescents between 1989 and 2018
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