Striving and Competing and its Relationship to Self-Harm in Young Adults

Abstract

Previous research has found that competitive, insecure striving (striving to avoid inferiority) has strong links with psychopathologies, self-harm and appearance anxiety. However, with rates of self-harm in young people rising, it seems important to explore the link between competitive striving and self-harm in young adults.Ninety-two participants completed a series of questionnaires which measured striving to avoid inferiority, self-harm, psychopathologies, social comparison, goal orientation and self-ideals. The results showed that competitive insecure striving was a key predictor of self-harm, depression, anxiety and stress.

Explaining the income and suicidality relationship: income rank is more strongly associated with suicidal thoughts and attempts than income

“…This is also consistent with the Cry of Pain and the IMV Model of Suicidal Behaviour model that argue that individuals who are more sensitive to what others expect of them are at increased risk of suicidal behaviour [4,24,42]. Within the social rank literature it is suggested that Western society is a particularly competitive environment, with the media creating ideals that are difficult to live up to [41].…”

“…Indeed, previous research has found that individuals who score higher on measures of competitive insecure striving (i.e., the desire to avoid inferiority) are more likely to self-harm [41], and individuals with heightened self-criticism, particularly when selfpersecuting, are also at increased risk of self-harm [39]. This is also consistent with the Cry of Pain and the IMV Model of Suicidal Behaviour model that argue that individuals who are more sensitive to what others expect of them are at increased risk of suicidal behaviour [4,24,42].…”

Social rank theory of depression: A systematic review of self-perceptions of social rank and their relationship with depressive symptoms and suicide risk

“…;Sheehan et al, 1998), or individual items tapping history of major depressive episodes (MDE; e.g., Alcantara et al, 2014) or depressed feelings (Antony et al, 2005). An additional three studies (Gilbert et al, 2009;Gilbert et al, 2010;Williams et al, 2009) measured self-harm with the self-harm inventory (SHI; Sansone and Sansone, 2010). Three measured suicidal thoughts (Goodman et al, 2015;Zvolensky et al, 2016;Zvolensky et al, 2017) using the modified scale for suicide ideation (MSSI;Pettit et al, 2009) and the suicide subscale of the inventory of depression and anxiety symptoms (IDAS-suicide; Watson et al, 2007).…”

“…Three studies investigated the relationship between SCS and self-harm (Gilbert et al, 2009;Gilbert et al, 2010;Williams et al, 2009). Each reported a significant negative relationship, indicating that feeling of a lower rank compared to others was associated with more self-harm.…”

Converging evidence for enduring perceptions of low social status in individuals in remission from depression

“…Insecure striving is associated with submissiveness and depressive symptoms in healthy and depressed adult populations ( Gilbert et al., 2007 ; Gilbert et al., 2009 ). In young adults, insecure striving is correlated with self-harm, perceptions of low rank and depressive symptoms ( Ferreira et al., 2013 ; Williams et al., 2009 ), while non-striving and acceptance are negatively associated with anxiety, fear of rejection and depressive symptoms ( Bellew et al., 2006 ).…”