Affiliation:

Imperial College London, United Kingdom

Project description:

Anticipatory mental imagery of self-injury often precedes engaging in NSSI. Growing evidence suggests it also plays a role in driving urges and facilitating self-injury (Lawrence et al. 2023). However, it remains unknown whether individual differences in the general use of future mental imagery, both of positive and negative valence, might be relevant to NSSI, for example in the form of less frequent or less vivid imagery of future goals and rewards. We developed a novel self-report scale seeking to assess the characteristics of future mental imagery use, the Future Imagery Scale (FIS). Approximately 250 students / young people from the general population completed the scale, as well as 50 YP with NSSI, 50 YP with disordered eating and 50 YP with negative affect but no history of NSSI/other dysregulated behaviours. These were participants from two different studies who also completed various measures of affect, impulsivity and emotion regulation. The aim of the project is to a) assess the psychometric properties of the current scale, 2) explore it's association with NSSI and other mental health measures, and 3) review and develop a final measure of the FIS

Applicants should have the following skills:
Some data processing skills and statistical skills (e.g. factor analysis, ANOVA); good collaborator.

Junior researcher responsibilities:
They will process data, conduct analysis under supervision or independently as appropriate and contribute to write-up of results.

Anticipated outcome(s) for junior researcher:
Exposure to numerous experimental studies in the broad field of NSSI, mental imagery and cognitive mechanism, with opportunities to also support these. Depending on level of writing skills, first or middle authorship on paper.

Time commitment:
Flexibile weekly hours for 2-8 months