An Empirical Research On Depression Of University Students: The Analysis Of Discrepancy Between Ideal Self And Actual Self

Depression is a kind of common negative emotion which has passive influenceon individual's studying, working and daily life. In recent years, with the universityexpansion in enrolment, the increase of tuition fees and fierce competition for job, theproblem concerning university students' depression has become highlighted andurgent. The foreign related research and practice of psychological counseling showedthat depression mainly derived from self concept and fixed to it, too. Thus, based onsubject's self concept, the research on university students' depression has become thebest cutting edge of exploring and resolving the increasingly urgent issue in thisregard. The research on self concept and depression has accumulated plenty of data. Butthe research on the relation between self concept and depression appeared to beinadequate, especially for university students. Besides, the tools designed formeasuring students' self concept were based neither on university students as subjectsnor on mental health. Therefore, based on the related theories, the study hereinconstructed higher dimensions of self concept, namely, ideal self and actual self,which are closely related to university students' depression. From the perspective ofmental health, the study took university students as subjects and specially designedIdeal Self Questionnaire and Actual Self Questionnaire. It aimed to survey therelationship between students' depression and the differences of various aspectsderived from a comparison between subject's ideal self and actual self. Moreover, itsuggested the specific ways to conquer the depression of university students' from theperspective of how to adjust their self concept. In this way, the study not onlyenriched the theoretic study in self concept and depression, but also offered rationalefor psychological counseling in university. By adopting self-designed University Students' Ideal Self and Actual SelfQuestionnaire and CES-D, the study surveyed 403 Ss from a certain university inGuangxi province, and arrived at the following conclusions after the analysis anddiscussion of the results: (1)The subjects' mean of depression was 3.09. The subjects' depression IIIsignificantly differed according to different grades(F=5.48, p<.01), sexes (F=10.31,p<.01)and economic status(F=31.73, p<.000). (2)The self-designed questionnaire had good validity and credibility. The factoranalysis obtained two sub-questionnaires which included 5 correspondent factors,namely, confidence self, adoption self, secular self, success self and moral self. (3) The subjects had positive actual self concept and higher ideal self concept.There were differences between the subjects' ideal self concept and actual selfconcept. The differences varied in degrees and ranks from the large to small: adoptionself, success self, confidence self, secular self and moral self. (4) The subjects' self-concept discrepancy significantly differed according todifferent grades(F=6.99, p<.000), sexes(t=-2.33, p<.05) and economic status(F=26.96, p<.000). (5) High depression group's self-concept discrepancy was significantly higherthan low depression group's(t=-8.54, p<.000). .(6) High self-concept discrepancy group's depression was significantly higherthan low self-discrepancy group's(t=9.11, p<.000). .(7) The subjects' adoption self concept discrepancy , success self conceptdiscrepancy, confidence self concept discrepancy and secular self concept discrepancywere important variables of their depression.