Emotional cascade theory and non-suicidal self-injury: the importance of imagery and positive affect

ABSTRACT

Grounded in Emotional Cascade Theory, we explored whether rumination and multisensory imagery-based cognitions moderated the relationships between affect and both odds of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), and frequency of the behaviour. A sample of 393 university students completed self-report questionnaires assessing the constructs of interest. Contrary to expectations, rumination did not emerge as a significant moderator of the affect-NSSI relationship. However, the relationship between affect and frequency of NSSI was moderated by the use of imagery. Further, the relationship between negative affect and NSSI was moderated by positive affect, underscoring the need to consider both negative and positive affect in models of NSSI. Most youth who self-injured reported thinking in images while the urge to self-injure was strong, with 53% thinking in images at least half the time. Future work is needed to explore how positive and negative affect work in concert to govern NSSI, and how imagery might either exacerbate or reduce risk of NSSI.

KEYWORDS:

• NSSI
• affect
• rumination
• imagery

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Peter M. McEvoy http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2924-6760

Notes

1 As the distribution of residuals was not perfectly normal, data were subjected to both square root and log transformations. Regression analyses were conducted three times, with square root transform, log transform and untransformed data. Results for all three analyses were the same. Results of untransformed data are reported for ease of interpretation.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported, in part, by a grant awarded to Peter McEvoy, Penelope Hasking, and Clare Rees by the Research and Development Committee of the School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University: [grant number SRAF-2014-37] and a Merit Award to Peter McEvoy from the Department of Health Western Australia: [grant number RES53597]. Martina Di Simplicio is supported by a Medical Research Council Career Development Fellowship: [grant number MC-A060-5PR50].