Non-suicidal self-injury as a low-effort strategy for avoiding negative affect

Background: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is primarily performed for negative reinforcement, which may be accomplished by facilitating avoidance of negative affect. This study aimed to identify whether an aversion to cognitive effort in the form of effort discounting underlies NSSI and other avoidant emotion regulation strategies.Methods: Adults (N= 149), 52% with a history of NSSI, completed a behavioral measure of effort discounting, the preference to expend less effort despite attaining less relief from an aversive experience. We used exploratory factor analysis to identify a dimension of avoidant vs. engagement-oriented affect regulation strategies, and we extracted factor scores from this dimension. Participants self-reported their past engagement in NSSI, perception of the effort required by non-NSSI affect regulation strategies, and past use of such strategies. Results: NSSI frequency was associated with the perception that other, non-NSSI affect regulation strategies were more effortful and effort discounting was associated with the use of more avoidant coping strategies. We did not find an association between avoidant affect regulation strategy use and NSSI frequency, regardless of whether NSSI was used for emotion regulation.Conclusions: Our results provide preliminary support that avoidant affect regulation strategies, possibly including NSSI, could be driven by exaggerated effort discounting and the perception that avoidance requires less cognitive effort.