An examination of the mediating role of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in the complex relationship between interpersonal needs and suicidal behavior

Background

Studies have shown that psychological factors, notably interpersonal needs and emotion regulation, play a significant role in suicidal behavior. Interpersonal needs are significant contextual components that affect emotion regulation and contribute to a wide range of dysfunctional behaviors, such as suicidal behavior. It has been postulated that emotion regulation mediates the associations between proximal and distal risk factors of suicidal behavior.

Method

The sample consisted of 340 community-dwelling individuals (62.5% women; SD = 0.48) with an age range of 18 through 55 (M = 30.23; SD = 8.54) who completed the interpersonal needs questionnaire, the suicide behaviors questionnaire-revised, and the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach was utilized to evaluate a mediation model.

Results

The findings indicate that interpersonal needs (i.e., perceived burdensomeness r = .55, p <.01 and thwarted belongingness r = .25, p <.01) and putatively maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies (i.e., self-blame; r = .38, p <.01, catastrophizing; r = .55, p <.01, rumination; r = .40, p <.01, and other blame; r = .44, p <.01) have strong associations with suicidal behavior, and these strategies have a mediating effect on the association between interpersonal needs and suicidal behavior.

Conclusions

Our findings show that contextual-interpersonal needs, which underpin suicidal behavior, are significantly influenced by maladaptive emotional processes. Thus, therapeutic outcomes might be enhanced by focusing on the content of the associated cognitions and trying to reduce maladaptive regulatory processes like rumination and catastrophization.

Extending B. F. Skinner's Selection by Consequences to Personality Change, Implicit Theories of Intelligence, Skill Learning, and Language

In a rooftop office, above a Minneapolis flour mill in 1943, B. F. Skinner discovered “shaping” by training a pigeon to send a small wooden ball down a miniature alley to hit a set of toy pins. Skinner recalled that the day was one of great illumination and emboldened his later suggestions that human behaviors may arise from behavior–environment interactions that are relatively malleable (selectionism) rather than arising from hypothetical inner constructs that are relatively fixed (essentialism). The present article extends selectionism to 4 current topics in psychology (personality change, implicit theories of intelligence, skill learning, and language) and highlights the advantages of selectionism, in contrast to essentialism.