The Relationship Between Pupils’ Psychological Suzhi And Emotional And Behavioral Problems

With the the development of self-awareness and the increased dependence on peer relationships,children in elementary school are susceptible to emotional and behavioral problems.Children’s emotional and behavioral problems have a very large impact on their future social adaptation.Therefore,it is necessary to determine the developmental characteristics and causes of emotional and behavioral problems.As a protective factor of individual mental health,psychological suzhi is an important influencing factor of children’s emotional and behavioral problems.Therefore,researches on the relationship between psychological suzhi and emotional and behavioral problems would contribute to the intervention of children’s emotional and behavioral problems.Researchers have conducted researches on the relationship between psychological suzhi and emotional and behavioral problems.But they were conducted mostly by cross-sectional methods and variable-centered perspective.Based on Holistic-interactionistic,in addition to taking "variables" as the analysis unit to evaluate the characteristics and interrelationships of some single aspect of the system so as to discover the general laws applicable to all individuals,we should also take "individuals" as the core analysis unit and integrate variables to classify individuals according to different developmental patterns,and then explore how a certain variable affects different types of individuals.Therefore,this study combined the analysis methods of variable-centered and person-centered perspective to explore the relationship between pupils’ psychological suzhi and emotional and behavioral problems.According to the purpose,the first part was a cross-sectional study,in which the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire(parent version)and Pupils’ Psychological Suzhi Questionnaire(simplified version)were used to investigate 4259 primary school students from grade 4 to grade 6 in Chongqing,to analyze the correlational relationships betwwen psychological suzhi and emotional and behavioral problems,and the impact of psychological suzhi on latent classes of emotional and behavioral problems.The second part was a longitudinal study,in which 913 grade 4 pupils were selected as the subjects.They Were investigated for three times in a year to analyze the the impact of psychological suzhi on developmental tendency and latent transition of pupils’ emotional and behavioral problems.The results of this study mainly came to the following conclusions:(1)Pupils’ psychological suzhi was significantly negatively correlated with the total score and each dimension of emotional and behavioral problems.(2)From grade 4 to grade 5,pupils’ emotional and behavioral problems and each dimension showed a linear downward trend.Psychological suzhi could significantly negatively predict the initial level of emotional and behavioral problems.The higher the psychological suzhi,the lower the initial levels of conduct problems,hyperactivity/inattention and peer relationship problems.However,psychological suzhi can only significantly negatively predict the rate of change of emotional symptoms.(3)Pupils could be divided into four different latent classes,which were named as “overall good group”,“overall difficult group”,“emotion and peer difficult group”and “conduct and attention difficult group”.Psychological suzhi could significantly affect the latent classes of emotional and behavioral problems.Compared with the“overall good group”,students with lower psychological suzhi had a greater proportion in “overall difficult group”,“emotion and peer difficult group” and“conduct and attention difficult group”.(4)From grade 4 to grade 5,“Overall good group” and “conduct and attention difficult group” had higher stability and were less likely to change over time than“overall difficult group” and “emotion and peer difficult group”.Psychological suzhi could significantly affect the latent transitions of emotional and behavioral problems.Students with higher psychological suzhi maintained “overall good group” more steady,and they were also more likely to transit from other groups to “overall good group”.