Body Regard as a Moderator of Pain Endurance and NSSI

Abstract

People who engage in NSSI have been found to endure physical pain for larger quantities of time compared to those who do not self-injure, and this endurance has been associated with increased engagement in NSSI behavior. Prior literature suggests that a person’s decreased resistance to NSSI is fueled by pain tolerance/endurance because the person has poor regard for their body. IMV theory, pain-offset relief theory, and the benefits and barriers model support the idea that moderators, such as body regard, affect engagement in, and frequencies, of NSSI. We hypothesized that body regard would moderate the relationship between pain endurance and NSSI such that poor body regard would strengthen the association of pain endurance NSSI frequency, and high body regard would weaken it.