The Relationship Between Shyness,Negative Automatic Thoughts,Emotion Regulation And Internalizing Problems Among College Students

Some study have indicated that global undergraduate's mental disease prevalence is rising year by year.These problems are increasingly common in modern college,and it is harmful for college students' school adaption and social adaption,so this study choose three main internalizing problems “depression,anxiety and loneliness” as measurement index of students' internalizing.The reasons leading these negative emotions including not only external factors such as parenting styles,stress events,academic stress,but also internal factors,such as personality(introversive and extroversive tendency,nervousness,shyness,etc),and cognitive factors(negative cognitive attitude,low self-esteem,etc).Shyness is an very important index infecting undergraduate's internalizing problems.Shyness is more common and serious in Chinese undergraduates when compared with that of other countries' 'students.Modest shyness has little damage,it would even be considered as good quality such as humility and low-key.But excessive shyness may cause many problems of both internalizing problems like anxiety,depression and loneliness and external behavior problems like internet addiction.In the process that shyness bring about some internalizing problems,negative cognitive model plays a critical role.Therefore,this study take Chinese college students as the research objects to investigate the relationship between shyness and internalizing problems,and the internal mechanism of the negative automatic thoughts and emotional adjustment between shyness and internalizing problems.This study take the Henderson “Undergraduate Shyness Scale” that was revised by Qianqian Wang,and the scale includes four dimensions,which are the fear of refusal,self-accusation,the inhibition of self-expression and the need for approval.“Automatic Thought Questionnaire”(ATQ)designed by Hollon and Kendall(1980),the “Self-rating Depression Scale”(SDS),“Self-Rating Anxiety Scale”(SAS),“Loneliness Scale”(UCLA),and “Emotion Regulation Scale” designed by Li Wang,which includes two dimensions of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression.We made a survey to 897 undergraduates in two universities.The main findings of the study are as follows:1.The college students' shyness is in the middle level,and the depression,anxiety and loneliness is below the average level.The shyness college students' level of depress,anxiety and loneliness is higher than non-shy students.2.The level of shyness have significantly difference in gender,and the college girls' shyness level is higher than college boys.There is no significant difference for shyness level between grades.Depression and anxiety have no significant difference in gender,however,they have significant difference in grades.The freshman's depression level is lower than the sophomore,junior and senior.The freshman's anxiety level is lower than the junior and senior.In brief,the freshman is the lowest,and the senior student is the highest.Loneliness have no significant difference in gender and grades.3.Shyness is positive correlated with internalizing problem(depression,anxiety,loneliness)and negative automatic thoughts.Negative automatic thoughts have the significant positive correlation with depression,anxiety and loneliness.Depression,anxiety and loneliness have the positive correlation between each other.Cognitive reappraisal have the significant positive correlation with negative automatic thoughts,loneliness,anxiety and depression but no significant correlation with shyness.Expressive suppression have the significant positive correlation with shyness,negative automatic thoughts,loneliness,anxiety and depression.4.Shyness have both direct and indirect impact on internalizing problem.Negative automatic thoughts and cognitive reappraisal,expressive suppression have multiple mediation effects between shyness and internalizing problems.