2 - SOCIAL COGNITION AND MODELING

• Platt (1993). The social transmission of parasuicide, is there a modeling effect?

  • Found that more contact with parasuicide was associated with more unfavourable attitudes
  • Concluded support for existence of modeling effect in parasuicide was weak
  • But experiment measured self-reported attitudes (i.e., not behaviour)
• Zhu et al. (2016). Frequency of exposure to and engagement in NSSI among inpatient adolescents

  • More frequent exposure associated with greater frequency of using
• Jarvi et al. (2013). The impact of social contagion on NSSI

  • Maintenance of NSSI is likely due to reinforcement
  • But initial engagement in NSSI might be particularly affected
• Bandura (1971). Social Learning Theory

  New behaviours can be learned by observing and imitating others

  Modeling
• Haltigan, Pringsheim, & Rajkumar (2023). Social media as an incubator of personality and behavioural psychopathology

  • Mental illness as identity-selection contributes to contagion effect
  • Diagnoses viewed less as mental health concerns requiring professional attention, but as identities (or character traits) that make individuals more interesting to others
  • “[...] the capacity for emotion regulation around the nature of one’s self-identity is increasingly being techno-mediated externally, rather than internally within the self”