Unconditional self-acceptance and mental health in ego-provoking experimental context

Although it is one of the central concepts of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), unconditional self-acceptance has not been sufficiently empirically examined, especially not experimentally. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the effects of unconditional self-acceptance on mental health indicators in an egoprovoking experimental situation. For a sample of 182 students, we simulated the situation of public speaking. After the simulation, participants were given previously prepared and randomly assigned positive, neutral and negative feedback. We used the Unconditional Self-Acceptance Questionnaire (USAQ: Chamberlain & Haaga, 2001), Serbian Inventory of Affect based on PANAS-X (SIAB-PANAS: Novović & Mihić, 2008), Anxiety subscale (DASS-42: Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995), State Depression Scale (SD: Novović, Biro & Nedimović, 2009) and Situational Attributional Style constructed for the purpose of this study (according to Peterson & Seligman, 1984). Data were collected during the winter semester 2013/2014 at the University of Novi Sad. In the case of anxiety and depression as outcome variables (posttest measures), the analysis of covariance revealed a significant three-way interaction between the level of unconditional self-acceptance, the type of feedback and the satisfaction with feedback. On the other hand, the same predictors did not influence the measures of positive and negative affect. Various expectations from the feedback, as well as the feedback, provoke a certain self-assessment. Different pattern of effects in case of different outcome variables is in accordance with REBT theory.