College Students' Depression Affected By Self-silencing:the Mediating Role Of Copying Styles And The Moderating Role Of Perceived Social Support

Purposes:Depression is prevalent among college students,and it will exert a significantly negative influence on their academic performances and life qualities.Self-silencing is regarded as an important factor in affecting depression.Besides,copying styles and perceived social support might also play a key role in this relationship.The purposes of the study are twofold:1)Testing the reliability and validity of the Silencing the Self Scale(STSS)in men and women;2)to analyze the prediction of self-silencing to depression,and to construct the psychological mechanism between self-silencing,copying styles,perceived social support and depression.Methods:A total of 978 college students from various universities in Hangzhou city were randomly selected to conduct a questionnaire survey.The questionnaires included Patient Health Questionnaire-9,Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire,the Silencing the Self Scale and Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire.Pearson correlation,Cronbach's a coefficient,Factor Analysis,Structural Equation Model were used to test the reliability and validity of the revised scale.Besides,Regression analysis and Structural Equation Model were used to explore the mediation and moderating effects of coping styles and perceived social support in the relationship of self-silencing and depression.Results:1)Result showed that Chinese version of STSS is of good reliability and validity in male and female groups:EFA supported two-factor model of men and four-factor model of women;2)Self-silencing is positively correlated with depressive symptoms,and can predict depression to some extent.Gender and self-silencing have an interactive effect on depression;3)Positive coping style and negative coping style partially mediated the relationship of self-silencing and depression in female groups.This mediating path did not exist in the male group;4)Perceived social support played a moderating role in the process of self-silencing affecting depression both in male and female groups?Conclusion:The revised version of STSS showed good applicability in both male and female groups,and verified the predictive effect of self-silencing on College Students'depression;Perceived social support moderated the relationship of self-silencing and depression.The mediating effects of copying styles between self-silencing and depression only occurred in female groups.