Parallel multiple mediating effects of self-encouragement and discouragement in the relationship between depression and self-esteem in college students

Abstract

Objectives The purpose of this study was to verify the parallel multiple mediating effects of cognitive-emo-tion-behavior, which were sub-factors of self-encouragement and self-discouragement, in the relationship be-tween depression and self-esteem in college students. Methods A survey was conducted on college students who voluntarily participated online, and all surveys were set as mandatory responses so that there was no unanswered response. The collected data were subjected to re-liability analysis, descriptive statistics of variables, and correlation analysis using the SPSS 26.0 statistical pro-gram, and the parallel multiple mediation model was verified using PROCESS Macro Model 4. Results First, college students' depression was negatively correlated with self-esteem and self-encouragement, and positively correlated with self-discouragement, and self-esteem was positively correlated with self-encour-agement and negatively correlated with self-discouragement. Second, in the relationship between depression and self-esteem in college students, the mediating effect of self-encouragement-cognition and self-encour-agement-emotion was significant, while the mediating effect of self-encouragement-behavior was not significant. The explanatory power of the model was 43.7%. Third, in the relationship between depression and self-esteem in college students, the mediating effects of self-discouragement-cognition and self-discourage-ment-behavior were significant, while the mediation effect of self-discouragement-emotion was not significant. The explanatory power of the model was 66.1%. Conclusions Through the results of this study, we confirmed the importance of cognition in improving self-es-teem and preventing decline in self-esteem in depressed college students, and confirmed that the factors that need to be intervened in self-encouragement and self-discouragement are different. In addition, rather than fo-cusing on self-encouragement, it was verified that there was a need to help prevent depressive symptoms from accelerating due to a decline in self-esteem. This study is significant in that it provided empirical evidence for con-structing an intervention program to improve the self-esteem of depressed college students.