A Study Of The Effects Of Self-concept, Achievement Motivation, And Coping Style On Undergraduates' Depression

As a special social group, undergraduates have been attracted more and more attention to their growing depression caused by individual and social factors. So it is of important theoretical and practical sense to study undergraduates' depression and its affecting factors in their psychological health education and counseling。Many researches in this field have revealed a close relationship between the individual self-concept and mental health. Therefore, undergraduates' depression is effectively prevented by means of investigating the self-concept state, helping them evaluate the ego correctly and then establishing the objective, positive and overall self-concept. Furthermore, as personal internal reasons of undergraduates' behaviors and outcomes, achievement motivation and coping style are supposed to show special relationship with their self-concept and depression. So they are also the important items to be investigated in this study.For this reason, on the basis of probing into relations deeply between undergraduates' self-concept and depression in this research., the author probes into relations among self-concept, achievement motivation, and coping style and intermediary variable working in the course to undergraduates' depression.The author measures 356 undergraduates by four questionnaires. Through the analysis to the investigation result, the research draws following conclusions:1 24.2% of the undergraduates suffer from depression to some degree, 14.4% of them are severely depressed. There are no marked gender , subject and urban-rural differences, while differences resulting from no-only child and only-child undergraduates can be seen. The CES-D scores of the students of no-only child undergraduates are significantly higher than only-child undergraduates.2 Although there aren't distinct differences in the global self-concept, there exist distinct gender, subject and no-only child and only-child differences among undergraduates at the level of self-concept in concrete factors.3 There is a negative correlation between many factors of self-concept and depression. Depression is affected strongly by intercourse, family, appearance, kindness self-concept, and academic self-concept.4 Through path analysis, self-concept not only influences depression directly, but also influences depression through achievement motivation and coping style indirectly. Achievement motivation exerts influence on depression by the mediator, coping style.