Non-Suicidal Self-Injury and Outcome Expectancies: The Roles of Self-Efficacy, Cognitive Reappraisal, and Expressive Suppression.

Objective: According to the Cognitive Emotional Model of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI), this behavior is governed by a complex interplay of NSSI-related cognitions (i.e., a person's expected outcomes of self-injury and self-efficacy to resist NSSI) and emotion-regulatory strategies (i.e., cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression). To empirically test this proposition, the current study examined the moderating roles of self-efficacy to resist NSSI, cognitive reappraisal, and expressive suppression in the relationships between outcome expectancies and NSSI frequency among university students.

Method: 559 university students (M = 20.7 years, 74.2% female, 40.3% with a NSSI history) completed an online self-report questionnaire.

Results: Self-efficacy to resist NSSI was a strong protective factor by diminishing the strength of the associations between expectations of affect regulation, communication, and negative self-beliefs and NSSI frequency. The relationships between outcome expectancies and self-efficacy to resist NSSI in predicting self-injury were further contingent on a person's use of expressive suppression. Specifically, a tendency to use expressive suppression strengthened the risk associated with the relationship between affect-regulatory expectancies and self-efficacy to resist NSSI, b = 1.05 [.64, 1.46], t = 5.04, p < .001, and attenuated the protection conferred by the relationship between negative self-beliefs expectancies and self-efficacy, b = -.17 [-.34, -.00], t = -2.02, p = .04.

Conclusions: In collectively examining the cognitive-emotional correlates of NSSI, the current findings empirically support the Cognitive-Emotional Model of NSSI and highlight the potential utility of targeting outcome expectancies and self-efficacy to resist NSSI in prevention and intervention initiatives.