Edited by: Francisco Sampaio, Fernando Pessoa University, Portugal
Reviewed by: Salman Shahzad, University of Karachi, Pakistan; Dario Bacchini, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
†These authors have contributed equally to this work
This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
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The objective of the study was to investigate the mediating effect of regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE) between negative peer relationship and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), as well as the moderating effect of gender difference.
A study of 578 Chinese adolescents (46.9% males, mean age = 16.32 years, SD =0.54) was conducted using the Child and Adolescent Peer Relationship Inventory, Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Adolescent Self-Injury Questionnaire.
Negative peer relationship was positively correlated with NSSI, and RESE was negatively correlated with negative peer relationship and NSSI. RESE mediated the association between negative peer relationship and NSSI. The first stage(predicting the effect of negative peer relationship on RESE) and the second stage (predicting the effect of RESE on NSSI) of the mediation effect of RESE were both moderated by gender. Specifically, compared with boys, the effect of negative peer relationship on RESE was stronger for girls, and the effect of RESE on NSSI was stronger for girls than boys.
Negative peer relationships may influence NSSI of adolescents through the mediating effect of RESE and the moderating role of gender.
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) was a behavior where individuals deliberately used any means possible to hurt themselves. This behavior often was performed without the intent of committing suicide and was not considered socially acceptable (
Peer relationship referred to an interpersonal relationship established and developed in the process of communication between peers at the same level of psychological development, which contained the meaning, expectations, and emotions generated in a series of interactions (
Based on
The purpose of the present study was twofold. First, this study examined whether RESE mediated the association between negative peer relationship and NSSI in a sample of Chinese adolescents. Based on self-efficacy theory, we proposed the hypothesis that RESE mediates the association between negative peer relationship and adolescents’ NSSI. Second, the study explored the moderating role of gender. Given existing research, we hypothesized that gender played a moderating role in the relationship between negative peer relationship and RESE, and played a moderating role between RESE and NSSI. Specifically, compared with males, females’ RESE would be more influenced by negative peer relationship, and compared with male, female’s NSSI would be more influenced by RESE. To sum up, on the basis of interpersonal/system model and self-efficacy theory, the current study explored a mediation model between peer relation, RESE, and NSSI, and examined the moderating effect of gender. This study would contribute to an enhanced understanding the mechanism of negative peer relationship on adolescent NSSI and provide insight regarding the prevention strategies and methods of intervention.
The proposed moderated-mediation model of the relationship between peer relationship and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI).
The participants were 612 high school students, who were selected using a convenient sampling method from a public middle school in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province of China. Fuzhou City was the capital of Fujian Province, which was located in the southeast coast of China. The questionnaires were distributed to the students in class. Five hundred and seventy eight valid questionnaires were obtained, and the effective recovery rate was 94.44%. Among them, there were 307 male students (53.10%) and 271 female students (46.9%). Three hundred and seventy seven of them were 10th grade students (62.20%) and 201 of them were 11th grade students (34.80%). All subjects were given informed consent.
Child and Adolescent Peer Relationship Inventory was used in this study. This scale was developed by
The 17-item Chinese version of the scale was revised by
The adolescent self-injury questionnaire was revised by
The study was implemented in compliance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. The Biomedical Research Ethics Committee of Fujian Medical University approved this study content and data collection procedures(No. 89). The data were collected in the classrooms of a public middle school between October and November of 2019. Informed consent was obtained from school administrators, students, and their parents before the data collection. Questionnaires were distributed in class. It took about 15 min to complete all the questionnaires. Students were informed about the confidentiality of the collected data, and their right to quit at any time if they did not wish to answer the questionnaires. Furthermore, all participants were taught with the knowledge about emotion management and were provided with psychological hotline service for free in the following 1 month.
In this study, SPSS26.0 software was used for the statistical analysis of the data. First, the relationships between variables were calculated through correlation analysis, and the correlation between gender and other variables was calculated by point biserial correlation. Second, model 4 in SPSS macro-process version 3.0 compiled by
Frequency analysis showed that 201 of 578 adolescents had NSSI, with a detection rate of 34.8%. Among them, 95 were male students and 102 were female students. The severity level of self-injury of girls was significantly higher than that of boys (
Pearson correlation analysis showed that there was a significant positive correlation between negative peer relationship and NSSI; regulatory emotional self-efficacy was significantly negatively associated with negative peer relationship and NSSI, as shown in
Correlation analysis between variables.
M | SD | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Negative peer relationship | 38.75 | 7.40 | 1 | |||
2. RESE | 62.34 | 10.27 | −0.27 |
1 | ||
3. NSSI | 2.55 | 6.69 | 0.26 |
−0.40 |
1 | |
4. Gender | 1.47 | 0.50 | −0.160 | 0.50 |
−0.45 |
1 |
RESE, Regulatory emotional self-efficacy; NSSI, Non-suicidal self-injury.
We adopted models 4 and 59 in SPSS macro-process version 3.0 compiled by Hayes to examine the mediating effect of regulatory emotional self-efficacy between negative peer relationship and adolescent self-injury and the moderating effect of gender. In this test, the bias-corrected bootstrap method was used to estimate confidence intervals for mediating and moderating effects by drawing 5,000 samples. The results of the mediating test showed that negative peer relationship had a significant negative predictive effect on regulatory emotional self-efficacy (β = −0.37,
The mediating role of RESE.
Mediating variable | Effect | Effect size | Effect ratio | Boot standard error | 95% CI |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
RESE | total effect | 0.26 |
0.04 | (0.18, 0.34) | |
direct effect | 0.17 |
0.04 | (0.09, 0.26) | ||
indirect effect | 0.09 |
34.6% | 0.03 | (0.05, 0.15) |
RESE, Regulatory emotional self-efficacy.
In addition, after adding gender as a moderating variable in the mediation model, the results showed that the interaction of negative peer relationship × gender had a significant negative predictive effect on regulatory emotional self-efficacy (β = −0.09,
The moderated-mediating effect of negative peer relationship on NSSI.
Outcome variable | predictor variable | 95% CI | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
RESE | negative peer relationship | 0.30 | 0.09 | 19.57 |
−0.26 | (−0.34, −0.18) | −6.53 |
gender | −0.11 | (−0.19, −0.04) | −2.85 |
||||
negative peer relationship*gender | −0.09 | (−0.17, −0.01) | −2.26 |
||||
NSSI | negative peer relationship | 0.45 | 0.20 | 28.76 |
0.15 | (0.08, 0.23) | 3.96 |
RESE | −0.35 | (−0.43, −0.28) | −8.98 |
||||
gender | 0.04 | (−0.03, 0.12) | 1.12 | ||||
negative peer relationship*gender | 0.01 | (−0.07, 0.09) | 0.27 | ||||
RESE*gender | −0.12 | (−0.19, −0.04) | −2.93 |
NSSI, Non-suicidal self-Injury; RESE, Regulatory emotional self-efficacy.
The final mediation moderation model determined that gender moderated the first half of the pathway (from negative peer relationship to regulatory emotional self-efficacy) and the second half of the pathway (from regulatory emotional self-efficacy to NSSI) of the mediating effect of regulatory emotional self-efficacy, verifying the hypothesis of this study. Further, a simple slope test showed that compared with boys (βsimple = 0.24,
Model of the test for simple slopes showing the moderating influence of gender of the association between negative peer relationship and RESE.
Model of the test for simple slopes showing the moderating influence of gender of the association between RESE and NSSI.
This study investigated the relationship between negative peer relationship and NSSI. We examined a moderated mediation model of NSSI with one risk factor of NSSI (negative peer relationship) and one protective factor of NSSI (RESE) in a large sample of Chinese adolescents. The results showed a significant positive correlation between negative peer relationships and NSSI. It meant that the worse the quality of peer relationship was, the higher the probability and frequency of NSSI in adolescents was. This was consistent with previous studies (
This study confirmed our hypothesis. The result showed that RESE partly mediated the association between negative peer relationship and adolescents’ NSSI. Negative peer relationship could affect NSSI through RESE. In other words, negative peer relationship would reduce the level of RESE, and the decrease of RESE might further increase the possibility or frequency of NSSI. Thus, a decrease of RESE might serve as one explanatory mechanism for the relationship between negative peer relationship and NSSI in teenagers. This result was also consistent with the emotion regulation theory of NSSI. RESE reflected an individual’s confidence in managing and expressing emotions. It also was considered as core factor of emotion regulation ability, which was closely related to the reduction and control of individual negative emotions (
The present study confirmed the moderating role of gender, not only in the indirect association between negative peer relationship and RESE, but also in the association between RESE and NSSI. The difference test found that adolescent females had lower RESE and higher NSSI than those males. The simple slope test indicated that female adolescents’ RESE was more affected by negative peer relationship compared to males. Specifically, female adolescents with negative peer relationships had lower level of RESE than males with negative peer relationships. Based on social role theory, females paid more attention to interpersonal relationships than males (
Compared with male adolescents, the predictive effect of RESE on NSSI was more significant in female adolescents. There might be many reasons for this finding. Many research showed that the susceptibility of females to NSSI was significantly higher than that of males (
There were several limitations to this study. First, due to the cross-sectional design of this study, we were unable to make any causal inferences about the observed associations. Future research should use longitudinal studies to better define the paths in our theoretical model. Second, the results of this study were based on self-reported results, and individuals might hide their self-injury behaviors. Moreover, social desirability, respondent bias, and recall bias might influence the results. Future work should use multiple-method assessment. Third, only 10th grade students and 11th grade students in one middle school were selected, while students in others grades or in other schools were not involved. So, the caution was warranted in generalizing the study findings. Further studies should examine the model in different grades and schools. Finally, RESE was a complex structure consisting of several components (
This was the first study to investigate the relationship between negative peer relationship and NSSI among Chinese adolescents. This study identified a significant moderated-mediation model that explained the effect of negative peer relationship on adolescents’ NSSI, which integrated the Interpersonal/System Model and the Self-Efficacy Theory. This model provided information about the relationship between negative peer relationship and adolescents’ NSSI and offered corresponding empirical evidence for theories about the emotion regulation of NSSI. It also offered some potential methods for preventing the deleterious consequences of negative peer relationship for adolescents. According to these results, regulatory emotional self-efficacy was a vital mediating variable in the relationship between negative peer relationship and adolescents’ NSSI. It provided a new path for the influence of negative peer relationship on NSSI. Further, this model emphasized that gender played an important role in adolescents’ mental health and females were more likely to be influenced by negative peer relationship and RESE than males. Future studies should continue to consider the role of gender in NSSI.
The results of this study had important practical implications. First, the results of this study emphasized the harmful impact of negative peer relationship on adolescents. Intervention programs should be used as much as possible to promote peer understanding and communication. Second, based on the Interpersonal/System Model and the Self-Efficacy Theory, we verified the mediating role of RESE between negative peer relationship and NSSI. The results suggested that by increasing adolescents’ emotion regulation self-efficacy, they could learn to cope effectively with the emotional distress caused by negative peer relationship experiences. Third, we found that gender had a significant difference in the impact of negative peer relationship on NSSI. Thus, teachers and parents should pay attention to adolescent girls, especially in bad peer relationships. At the same time, researchers should also explore and apply the cultivation and improvement of RESE. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) had been widely used in NSSI and had shown beneficial effects. More importantly, DBT might be beneficial for adolescents with a wide range of emotional regulation difficulties (
This study constructed a moderated mediation model to test the mediating role of RESE in negative peer relationship and NSSI relationship, as well as the moderating role of gender in this mediating role. The first stage (predicting the effect of negative peer relationship on RESE) and the second stage (predicting the effect of RESE on NSSI) of the mediation effect of RESE were both moderated by gender. Compared with boys, the effect of negative peer relationship on RESE was stronger for girls, and the effect of RESE on NSSI was stronger for girls than boys. As negative peer relationship had a negative impact on adolescents, it was necessary to pay attention to those in the negative peer relationships. Interventions should be taken to improve RESE of adolescents. Special attention should be given to adolescent girls.
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Biomedical Research Ethics Committee of Fujian Medical University. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardian/next of kin.
QJ designed the theoretical framework. J-bX analyzed the data. NJ collected the data. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
This study was supported by the Social Science Planning Project of Fujian Province (FJ2019B173), Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (2021 J01816), and School of Health of Fujian Medical University.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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