Self-criticism is a real-time predictor of non-suicidal self-injury and disordered eating: An ecological momentary assessment study among treatment-seeking individuals
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Although theory and research implicate self-criticism as a risk factor for non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), the nature of this association in daily life remains unclear. This study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to address whether (1) trait and state self-criticism elevate the risk of NSSI, (2) state self-criticism predicts NSSI behavior in real-time via increased NSSI urge intensity, and (3) the risk pattern extends to disordered eating (DE; binge eating, purging, restrictive eating). A total of 125 treatment-seeking individuals who self-injure (87.20% female; M age = 22.98, SD = 5.32) completed measures of trait self-criticism at intake, followed by six daily assessments for 28 days (15,098 assessments; median compliance = 78.6%) measuring self-critical thoughts, NSSI, and DE. Multilevel vector autoregressive models were constructed within a dynamic structural equation modeling framework. Patients who reported higher mean state self-critical thoughts experienced more intense NSSI urges and an increased risk for NSSI behavior during the 28-day EMA period. Higher-than-usual self-critical thoughts predicted NSSI urge intensity and NSSI behavior within the following 2 h. NSSI urge intensity partially mediated the effect of self-critical thoughts on NSSI behavior. Trait self-criticism did not predict comorbid DE, but mean state self-critical thoughts were associated with binge eating and restrictive eating. The within-person risk pattern of self-criticism generally extended to DE, with full mediation via DE urges for purging and restrictive eating, but not binge eating. Self-criticism is a real-time predictor of NSSI and comorbid DE. These findings underscore the relevance of monitoring self-criticism outside the therapy room, as it may be an important treatment target. • Aggregated state self-criticism predicted NSSI, binge eating, and restricting. • State self-criticism predicted NSSI urges and behaviors within the next 2 h. • NSSI urges partially mediated the effect of state self-criticism on NSSI behavior. • This within-person risk pattern extended to purging and restricting. • Self-criticism is a real-time risk factor of NSSI and comorbid disordered eating.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".