Citation

Daly O, Willoughby T. Psychiatry Res. 2019; 271: 678-683.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Brock University, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.psychres.2018.12.056

PMID

30791341

Abstract

Previous research has indicated that both self-criticism and parental criticism may be associated with engagement in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). However, much less is known about the temporal sequencing of these relationships (i.e., do self-criticism and parental criticism predict NSSI across time, or does NSSI predict self-criticism and parental criticism across time?). Undergraduate students (N = 1132; 70.5% female; M_age= 19.06) from a midsized Canadian university completed measures of NSSI, self-criticism, maternal criticism, and paternal criticism at two time points (one year apart). An autoregressive cross-lagged path analysis revealed that there was a significant unidirectional relationship between NSSI and self-criticism, such that greater NSSI frequency predicted greater self-criticism across time, but self-criticism did not predict greater NSSI frequency across time. In addition, both maternal and paternal criticism were not significantly associated with NSSI frequency when examining either direction of effects. Overall, our results challenge the notion that self-criticism is a risk factor for NSSI engagement, and instead, suggest that it may be a consequence of NSSI engagement. Intervention programs may benefit from recognizing that individuals who engage in NSSI may subsequently criticize themselves.

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Maternal criticism; NSSI; Paternal criticism; Psychology; Risk factors; Young adults