Mental Health And Individual Differences Of Foreign Trade Employees

At present,literature on mental health of Chinese specific group pay less attention to the foreign trade employees,which is out of touch with the fact that China has become a mega foreign trade country with huge amount of foreign trade employees.Based on a survey data from 354 foreign trade employees,this paper focuses on the overall characteristics and individual differences of mental health of foreign trade employees and further,discusses the possible mediation effect and moderation effect of career-related social events represented by the Sino-US Trade War on mental health,so as to provide suggestions for improving the mental health level of foreign trade employees in the near future.The main contents of the article are as follows: firstly,we introduces the development background of China's trade cause and raises our research problems and hypotheses.Secondly,existing literature on the connotation,dimensions,methods and scale of mental health,as well as mental health-related factors and mental health of special groups are reviewed and summarized.Thirdly,statistical method is used to analyze both the overall mental health current characteristic and the differentiation characteristics related to respondents' socio-economic attributes and three individual level psychological factors,namely the Big Five Personality,the psychological elasticity scale,and the emotion regulation self-efficacy.Finally,based on the above results,we examine the mediation effect and moderation effect of macro-social level event,represented by the respondents' subjective feelings about the Sino-US Trade War,on the relationship between psychological factors and mental health.Conclusions are as follows:(1)Compared with the national norm(1986 and 2015),total score of foreign trade employees for our SCL-90 scale are about twice higher,and average score of each factor is also higher,indicating that respondents' mental health level is obviously lower than national average level,which needs to be paid attention to.(2)Sample grouping and mean test show that the demographic characteristics like gender,age,education,length of time in the foreign trade industry,cities where respondents' units are located and the type of business are related to the mental health level to various degrees.Respondents who are male,young,poorly educated,lack of working experience,working in Guangzhou or Shenzhen,engaged in complex and diverse businesses show stronger symptoms andaccordingly lower level of mental health.(3)Significant correlation between the individual psychological factors of foreign trade employees and their mental health level has been proved.As for the Big Five Personality,agreeableness,extroversion and sense of responsibility are positively correlated to mental health level,while neuroticism and openness show the opposite,among which neuroticism is the core dimension.In the dimension of psychological elasticity,ability is negatively,and accepting change and control are positively correlated to mental health level,among which accepting change is the core dimension.In the dimension of self-efficacy,POS,DES and ANG all have positive relationships with mental health level,among which ANG is the core dimension.(4)Subjective feelings about the trade war has prominent mediation effect on the relationship between the Big Five Personality,psychological elasticity and mental health level.(5)Subjective feelings about the trade war has prominent moderation effect on the relationship between the Big Five Personality,self-efficacy and mental health level.Based on the above results,we suggest that,in the future,the mental health level of foreign trade employees can be improved from several aspects such as paying attention to the impact of major social events in the foreign trade industry,establishing a mental health assessment mechanism for foreign trade employees,publicizing mental health knowledge and creating a good working atmosphere.