The Effect Of Psychological Maltreatment On Middle School Students’ Interpersonal Relationships:Moderated Mediating Model

Interpersonal relationships of the middle school period constitutes a primary factor that can affect individuals’ adaptive development in society,while psychological maltreatment might influence middle school students’ interpersonal relationships.The correlation between psychological maltreatment and interpersonal relationships among middle school students is potentially linked to individuals’ psychological security experience and self-experience.This paper aimed at examining the influence of psychological maltreatment on middle school students’ interpersonal relationships,and discussing the mediating role of security between the two and the regulating role of selfcompassion.Meanwhile,the latent types of middle school students’ psychological maltreatment was investigated from the person-centered perspective.On that basis,the correlation between different latent types and interpersonal relationship,security and selfcompassion was discussed,respectively.In this research,966 middle school students(45.76% of them were males;Mage =15.0 years old;SD = 1.75)in Fujian were chosen as research participants.The “Child Psychological Maltreatment Scale(CPMS)”,“Interpersonal Relationship Integrative Diagnostic Scale(IRIDS)”,“Security Questionnaire(SQ)” and “Self-compassion Scale(SCS)” were adopted for a survey,and SPSS 25.0 and Mplus 8.3 were used for data processing and analysis.Results suggested:(1)The positive detection rate of middle school students’ psychological maltreatment was 34.37%;the total detection rate of interpersonal relationship obsessions was 48.34%;the scores of security,self-compassion and other dimensions was all higher than the theoretical average.Psychological maltreatment is significantly different at the dimension of the origin of students and gender;interpersonal relationship was significantly different at the dimension of the origin of students;security and selfcompassion were both significantly varied at the dimension of the origin of students and gender.(2)Interpersonal relationship were significantly negatively correlated with interpersonal relationship,security and self-compassion.On the contrary,interpersonal relationship,security and self-compassion were significantly positively correlated in pairs.Among them,psychological maltreatment could negatively predict interpersonal relationship.Security played a mediating role between psychological maltreatment and interpersonal relationship.Self-compassion played a regulating role in the first half of the mediating path of interpersonal relationship.The protective role of self-compassion was more obvious at a lower level of psychological maltreatment.(3)Middle school students’ psychological maltreatment was found with obviously latent types,which could be divided into low-risk and high-risk psychological maltreatment group.Middle school students who were classified into different psychological maltreatment groups were significantly different from one another in terms of security and interpersonal relationship.Different interpersonal relationship groups were found with a different role of self-compassion in predicting security.To sum up,psychological maltreatment could not only directly affect middle school students’ interpersonal relationship,but indirectly influenced middle school students’ interpersonal relationship via security.Besides,self-compassion could regulate the first half of the aforesaid mediating path.Research results can help explain the correlation and functioning mechanism between psychological maltreatment and middle school students’ interpersonal relationship,and provide references for practices.