Mood and Behaviors Research

Ongoing Research Projects

Sleep disturbance and Self-Injury
Suicide is a major public health problem among young adults, and we urgently need to identify clinically-relevant factors that predict suicide risk across diverse populations.  One such clinically-relevant factor is sleep.  Research has shown that disturbed sleep is associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors; the next step is to understand if sleep is immediately associated with increased suicidality.  We are conducting a research study investigating the association between sleep and suicidal thoughts and behaviors over a 21-day period.

Pain Perception and Self-Injury
We are examining pain perception among non-clinical samples without and without histories of NSSI and attempted suicide, in a laboratory-based study. We are especially interested in examining variables that may contribute to pain perception in self-injury, such as habituation and distress tolerance.

Cognitive Regulation
Research has implicated deficits in emotion regulation as critical to the development and maintenance of NSSI. This study aims to identify specific emotion regulation deficits among individuals who engage in NSSI to allow for a better understanding of emotion regulation in NSSI and to inform treatments focused on emotion regulation.  

Validation of the Injury Severity Scale for NSSI
The purpose of this study is to validate a measure of medical severity of NSSI injuries developed by the lab, the Injury Severity Scale for NSSI (ISS-NSSI).

Ongoing Student Research Projects

Self-Harm Online Experiences Study (SHOE)This is an online study examining the effects of engaging in content related to self-harm and suicide online. The study includes an initial survey and then one week of short mini-surveys before and after engaging in this online content. The SHOE study aims to understand how engaging in this content affects urges to engage in self-injury, suicidality, and feelings of belongingness. To get involved, reach out to [email protected].