Self-punishment and Pain Sensitivity - 2013 - St. Catharines, ON, Canada

Despite recent findings that individuals who engage in non-suicidal self injury (NSSI) have heightened tolerances for pain relative to non-injurers, little attention has been given to how self-injurers overcome the instinct to avoid the pain involved in NSSI. Understanding the process through which self-injurers are willing to tolerate pain, however, may have important implications for prevention and intervention efforts, as heightened tolerance for pain has been associated with increased suicidal risk. In the present study, we examined whether one factor that may influence a self-injurer's willingness to tolerate pain is whether they engage in NSSI to regulate the need to self-punish (i. e., I engage in NSSI to punish myself, express anger at myself). Participants included 82 fourth year undergraduate students from a mid-sized Canadian university (i.e., 31 self-injurers with self-punishment motivations, 25 self-injurers without self-punishment motivations, 26 age-matched controls) recruited from a larger ongoing project examining stress and coping among university students (N = 832, 69.5 percent female, Mage = 21.52). Following a stress task, pain threshold, pain tolerance, and pain intensity ratings were assessed using the Cold-Pressor Task. ANOVA analyses revealed that self-injurers who engaged in NSSI to self-punish tolerated pain significantly longer and rated this pain as less aversive than self-injurers without self-punishment motivations, and the comparison group of non-injurers. Our findings, therefore, suggest that willingness to tolerate painful stimulation may be an important part of the self-injury experience among individuals who engage in NSSI to self-punish. Moreover, our findings suggest that motivational factors underlying NSSI should be integrated into theories on the link between NSSI and pain sensitivity.