Examining the role of life purpose in high school students' self-esteem through structural equation modelling

The relationship between self-consciousness and depression in college students: the chain mediating effect of meaning life and self-efficacy, with the moderating effect of social support

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to investigate the impact of self-consciousness on depression of college students, and mainly focus on confirming the mediator role of life meaningful and self-efficacy, as well as the moderator role of social support.

METHODS

In the present study, convenient sampling method was adopted, 583 college students were recruited from Harbin city and Wenzhou city in China. All students were assessed using self-assessment scales, including self-consciousness scale, life meaningful scale, self-efficacy scale, social support scale, and self-rating depression scale. Descriptive statistical analysis and correlation analysis, structural equation model analysis were conducted by SPSS 25.0 and M-plus.

RESULTS

Results showed that self-consciousness was negatively related to depression, life meaningful and self-efficacy partially mediated the relation between self-consciousness and depression. Moderated mediation analysis further indicated that the relation between self-efficacy and depression were moderated bu social support. Compare with college students who had high social support, depression in those with low social support was more susceptible to the effect of self-efficacy.

CONCLUSION

These findings imply that college students with low levels of self-consciousness are more easy to be depressive, enhancing their sense of life meaning and self-efficacy can effectively alleviate depression, and college student with high social support can benefit more from self-efficacy. Therefore we should pay more attention to the mental health problems of low levels self-consciousness college students in university.

Purpose Orientation and Its Protective Effect on Self-Esteem Among Chinese Depressive Patients: A Comparative Study

Purpose

Although previous studies have confirmed that purpose in life may negatively predict depressive symptoms, focusing on the intensity of purpose without focusing on content may ignore significant individual differences. This study explores differences in purpose orientations between depressive patients and healthy population to examine the relationship between the purpose content and self-esteem, one of the symptoms of depression. In addition, the moderating role of purpose orientations in the relationship between depression and self-esteem was analyzed to verify the protective effect of purpose orientation on self-esteem.

Patients and Methods

The study utilized the questionnaire approach. The Purpose Orientation Scale (Self and Forced Rating) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale were administered to the participants. The study recruited 73 depressive patients using convenience sampling. Moreover, using random sampling, 146 participants matched based on depressive patients' demographics were selected as a healthy population in a 1:2 ratio.

Results

The results showed that: 1) depressive patients valued all four types of purpose orientations to a lesser extent compared to healthy population, both depressive patients and healthy population valued family well-being and personal growth to a greater extent than personal well-being and social promotion. 2) Depressive patients reported lower self-esteem than healthy people. 3) All four types of Purpose orientations positively correlated with self-esteem in depressive patients, while only personal well-being positively correlated with self-esteem in healthy population. Family well-being and social promotion moderated the predictive effect of depression on self-esteem.

Conclusion

The above results imply that prosocial purpose orientations may attenuate the harmful effects of depression on self-esteem. Additionally, intervention focusing on enhancing depressive patients' purpose in life (especially prosocial purpose) could be helpful.