How Interparental conflict relates to adolescent non-suicidal self-injury longitudinally? The role of adolescent emotional insecurity, depressive symptoms, and humor

Increasing evidence has shown that interparental conflict is a risk factor for adolescent maladjustment. However, little is known about how and under what conditions interparental conflict influences adolescent non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). The current study aims to fill in these gaps by identifying mediators (i.e., emotional insecurity and depressive symptoms) and a moderator (i.e., adolescent humor) in the aforementioned relationship. Data were collected at two-time points spanning one year from 742 Chinese adolescents (52.70% female; Mage at Wave 1 = 13.40 years) in China. All participants completed questionnaires about their perceptions of interparental conflict, adolescent NSSI, emotional insecurity, depressive symptoms, and humor. The results revealed that the indirect pathways linking interparental conflict and adolescent NSSI were conditioned on the level of adolescent humor. Specifically, for adolescents with lower levels of humor, a higher level of interparental conflict was related to more adolescent NSSI first through greater adolescent emotional insecurity and then depressive symptoms. For adolescents with higher levels of humor, such indirect links were not significant. The findings of this study emphasized the mediating roles of emotional insecurity and depressive symptoms and the buffering role of humor in the process from interparental conflict to NSSI. These results indicate that reducing adolescent emotional insecurity and depressive symptoms would be effective to prevent the process from interparental conflict to NSSI, particularly for adolescents with lower levels of humor.