Nearly one in five adolescents has engaged in non-suicidal self-injury, and those adolescents with friends who engage in self-harm are at higher risk for the behavior. But adolescent social networks are complex.
New research from Northeastern University shows this complexity — finding that having a greater number of friends can protect against non-suicidal self-injury among friends, while also being a greater risk factor for adolescents who are in multiple social groups. “It’s a very complex data analysis,” says Jiaao Yu, a Ph.D. student in sociology at Northeastern who studies the formation of social relationships and how they impact behavior and mental health. Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is defined as harming one’s own body without suicidal intent. Common examples include cutting, burning, scratching and banging or hitting; and most people who engage in the behavior have used multiple methods.
Yu explains that researchers generally study the topic from one of two perspectives: social contagion (the spread of attitudes or behaviors) and social integration (the process by which groups and individuals come together). The social contagion aspect of the research focuses on why adolescents who have friends involved in NSSI are more likely to engage in NSSI themselves, whether they see it as normal behavior for coping with distress or as a way to fit in or signal membership in a group.
