Approach-avoidance biases to self-harm cues in young people with self-harm.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• The urge to self-harm is comparable to craving in addiction.
• Cognitive mechanisms like attentional bias are implicated in craving.
• It is unclear if these mechanisms also drive the urge to self-harm.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate attentional biases to self-harm cues in young people.
• To compare attentional biases in individuals with self-harm, healthy controls, and individuals with high negative affect but no self-harm.

Main Methods:

• A Dot Probe Task was employed to assess attentional bias.
• Participants included young people aged 16-25 with self-harm (N=50), healthy controls (N=50), and negative affect controls (N=50).
• Self-harm cues were presented for 0.2s and 2s.

Main Results:

• The self-harm group showed greater avoidance of self-harm cues at 2s compared to healthy controls.
• Individuals with high negative affect demonstrated less difficulty disengaging from self-harm cues at 2s.
• No significant group differences in attentional bias were observed at 0.2s.

Conclusions:

• Avoidance of self-harm cues may indicate ambivalence towards self-harm behavior.
• The ability to disengage from self-harm cues might be protective for individuals with high negative affect.
• Future research should explore attentional biases as markers for treatment response or relapse in self-harm.