Relational Research Of University Students' Life Events And Explanatory Style And Psychological Distress

Explanatory style has been recognized as a kind of optimism concept. It is a personality variable that reflects how people typically explain the causes of bad events involving themselves. This study was based on Seligman's explanatory style theory, we did further validation in the attributional style questionnaire. The university students participated in this research and completed three scales, The three scales was the general health questionnaire(GHQ-20),the attributional style questionnaire and the scale of adolescent life events. The study examined the relationship among university students' stressful life events, explanatory style and psychological distress. The results were as follow:1. The attributional style questionnaire has good validity and reliability.2. There was significant difference of university students' explanatory style between groups for grade, but not for gender. The score of senior was significantly higher than that of others in CP .3. There was significant difference in psychological distress between optimistic explanatory style and pessimistic explanatory style. Those people who are more optimistic are more sense of adequacy, less depression, more well-being.4. There was significant correlation between explanatory style and psychological distress. Explanatory style was positively associated with GHQ-20, sense of adequacy, depression and anxiety; CN was negatively associated with GHQ-20, sense of adequacy, depression and anxiety; CP was only positively associated with sense of adequacy. That was to say, the more optimistic in explanatory style, the more well-being in mental health, and CN was more strongly associated with psychological distress as opposed to CP.5. Explanatory style could predict psychological distress. CN could predict GHQ-20, sense of adequacy, and anxiety significantly; but CP only could predict sense of adequacy.6. Explanatory style was as a mediator between stressful events and psychological distress .It could regulate the relationship between stressful events and psychological distress partially.