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. 2024 Nov 14.
doi: 10.1007/s10578-024-01779-y. Online ahead of print.

Risk and Protective Effects of Need for Approval on Self-Injury in Adolescent Girls

Rebekah B Clapham  1 , Zihua Ye  2 , Leah H Somerville  3 , Adam Bryant Miller  4 , Matteo Giletta  5 , Paul D Hastings  6 , George M Slavich  7 , Matthew K Nock  3 , Mitchell J Prinstein  4 , Karen D Rudolph  2
Affiliations

Risk and Protective Effects of Need for Approval on Self-Injury in Adolescent Girls

Rebekah B Clapham et al. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. .

Abstract

The goal of this research was to expand theoretical models of adolescent suicide by exploring whether individual differences in adolescent girls' need for approval (NFAavoid and NFAapproach) contribute to risk for, or protection against, self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs). We examined these novel hypotheses in a series of concurrent and longitudinal analyses in two samples of adolescent girls (Study 1: N = 89, Mage = 16.31 years, SD = 0.84, 67.4% White; Study 2: N = 229, Mage = 11.80, SD = 1.80, 49.8% White). Hierarchical linear and logistic regressions revealed that NFAavoid was generally associated with higher risk for SITBs, whereas NFAapproach generally had a protective effect against SITBs; moreover, the strength of these associations depended on the extent to which girls engaged in rumination. Together, these results suggest that encouraging girls to develop diverse foundations for their sense of self-worth beyond peer judgements may protect against SITBs.

Keywords: Adolescent girls; Need for approval; Rumination; Self-injurious thoughts and behavior.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations Competing Interests The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical Approval The studies in this paper were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the American Psychological Association. We certify that we have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of our samples and all procedures in both studies were approved by the respective university Institutional Review Boards. For both studies, parents provided written consent and youth provided written assent. Research Involving Human Participants All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Both studies were approved by the respective university Institutional Review Boards. For both studies, parents provided written consent and youth provided written assent.

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