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Applied Science and Innovative Research
ISSN 2474-4972 (Print) ISSN 2474-4980 (Online)
Vol. 2, No. 3, 2018
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87
Original Paper
The Relationship between Resilience and Mental Health: the
Mediating Effect of Positive Emotions
Zhun Gong1*, Lichao Yu1 & Jonathan W Schooler2
1 Department of Psychology, Teachers College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong, China
2 Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, California,
USA
* Zhun Gong, Department of Psychology, Teachers College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong,
China
Received: July 18, 2018 Accepted: July 31, 2018 Online Published: August 13, 2018
doi:10.22158/asir.v2n3p87 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/asir.v2n3p87
Abstract
To investigate the relationship of resilience, positive emotions and mental health, and the relationship
of resilience, positive emotion and three sub-dimensions of mental health: self-affirmation, depression
and anxiety. In this study, the existing cross-sectional data, select the Beijing Forestry University data
as samples. In this study, questionnaire survey a random sample of 199 undergraduate students of
Beijing Forestry University, they uniform application three Scale Surveying, PANAS, CD-RISC,
GHQ-20. According from the study, (1) resilience, positive mood and general health are related where
resilience and positive emotions between the resilience. General psychological health, positive
emotions and general mental health
，
it is positively correlated. (2) Resilience and self-affirmation
exists, positive correlation with depression and anxiety, respectively negative correlation. Between
positive emotions and self-affirmation the positive correlation with anxiety negative correlation. (3)
Part mediating effect of positive emotions exist between resilience and self-affirmation, resilience can
be made to self-affirmation prediction coefficient from 0.042 down to 0.036. Therefore, this study
concluded that resilience undergraduates can have an impact on mental health through the
intermediary variable positive emotions.
Keywords
Resilience, positive emotions, mental health, mediating effect
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1. Introduction
Since the 21st century, a large number of talents have been needed to increase the strength in all
aspects of Chinese construction, with the rapid development of China’s economy, society, science and
technology, education and other fields, Chinese government vigorously promotes the implementation
of the equal education, making the university education more and more popular. The number of college
graduates have changed from over one million in 2001 to eight million in 2015 and increase about 6.5
times in 15 year (Shi, Cui, Lei, & Zheng, 2013). On the one hand, it reflects the increasing popularity
of education in recent years. On the other hand, the number that warns us because of the rapid growth
of the population, undergraduates face more pressure problems such as employment, postgraduate,
emotion, and thus more prone to physical and mental health problems. Mental health is the basic
elements of the value of life to finish your college course and get into the society. Measuring, building
and understanding the undergraduates’ psychological health level and establishing effective mechanism
to cultivate and improve undergraduates’ mental health score helps the students complete their studies
and achieves a better life. Resilience refers to the individuals to relieve the stress that do harm to
mental health and adapt to the bad environment in the face of pressure. Individual resilience ability is
stronger in the face of pressure resistance to pressure, it is significantly negative correlation with the
occurrence of negative emotions, has significant positive correlation relationship with emotions like
optimistic, sunshine (Davydov et al., 2010). Most scholars have carried out on the pressure and the
relationship between undergraduates’ mental health, but most studies focused on the stress and negative
emotions, the results showed that when in the pressure environment, at the same time to have a
moderate positive emotions and negative emotions, will help make the interpersonal communication
level of personal development, help people to adapt to the environment better (Fredickson, 2001).
Therefore, it is an important link to study how positive emotions influence people’s mental health and
improve their mental health. This study explores the relationship among the resilience, positive
emotions, mental health and hypothesize that positive emotions through the mediating effect
respectively in psychological resilience and psychological health and its’ dimensions have relationship
between self-esteem, depression, anxiety.
2. Background and Hypotheses
In recent years, fresh or not has a bachelor’s degree in this year’s undergraduates has become a
mainstay of annual recruitment market, increasing employment pressure of competition. They are the
main power in the future of the construction of China and will become the main power in the future of
the construction of all walks of life. Students with high resilience tend to be able to face the pressure
actively. They are generally good at academic performance and do things in a positive way and can
finish their study tasks well. It’s no doubt that action between resilience and mental health (Meerow,
Newell, & Stults, 2016), but how the resilience to influence mental health still to be further studied.
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2.1 Resilience
Nearly 20 years, the researchers have emphasized particularly on the concept of resilience in different
parts, there are three main categories: First, the definition of consequence is standing in the perspective
of development results to define resilience. Masten points out that resilience is that when a person faces
a major threat to the event can quickly adapt and generate smooth development results. Second, the
definition of competence is that the intelligence and quality that a person exhibit is an individual trait.
Werner E.E proposed that resilience is the ability of individuals to withstand highly destructive changes
and try to cover up bad behaviors (Ma, Sang, & Hong, 2008). Third, the definition of procedure is that
resilience is a process of constant change, growth and expansion. Resilience represents a series of
abilities that enable individuals to recover quickly and successfully respond to difficult pressures and
threats through dynamic interaction. All in all, the definition of procedure includes the definition of
consequence and he definition of competence, because it will not only define the focus of the
individual good adaptability and strain capacity and also dynamic relationship between risk and
protective characteristics to identify in case of more easily accepted by people. In general, all studies on
resilience contain two factors of operational definitions of resilience: (1) individuals encounter
adversity; (2) individuals successfully response (Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998).
Although the researchers have not given the resilience a scientific definition, different researchers for
the inner structure of resilience of is different, but in the study of science, generally regarding the role
of resilience as the specific protective factors from the operational level. After years of research by
foreign researchers, at present a more consistent conclusion is that the individual in the process of the
produce and development of resilience, the key mediating effects the internal and external “protective
factors”. Protective factors are the factors that can buffer a child’s injury in a negative environment,
which is opposite of risk factors. These protective factors come from external factors such as social
support and individual traits such as self-efficacy. Masten and Coatsworth summarized the results of
the previous 25 years, noting that similar protective factors were mentioned in many studies of
resilience in the late twentieth century (Doll & Lyon, 1998).
2.2 Positive Emotions
In 1998, Martin. E. P. Sligman proposed a positive psychology movement, which divided the research
of positive psychology into three aspects: the first is positive emotion; the second is the individuality
characteristic of the positive individual; the third is the positive social system. Positive emotions
mainly have two core functions. First, the instantaneous broaden function. That is to expand the
individual’s thinking quickly-action threshold. The positive emotions help the individual to actively
think more about the relevant possibility and expand the scope of the individual’s attention, cognition
and action. For example, the emergence of new stimuli makes individuals increase the attention to the
stimulus and develop a deep exploration of the movement trend. Second, it can help individuals
construct lasting physical, mental, psychological, and social resources. For example, when individuals
experience a pleasant mood, they will have more inclination to go out to parties, make friends, and
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share pleasant behaviors with their partners. In the study of children’s positive emotion found that
pleasurable games can help children establish intellectual framework and promote children’s brain
development which help children master the ability of obtaining information and improve children’s
ability to solve high difficulty when they grow up. These two functions can promote the individual to
continuously improve themselves and attain the well-being of the body. Integrated predecessors’
research on positive emotions, it is not difficult to found that positive emotions can not only increase
attention threshold, but also improve the sensitivity of the individual for positive reality and reduce the
negative emotions that leading to emotional experience and physical arousal and make the individual’s
mental and physiological continue in a peace and stability state (Gloria & Steinhardt, 2016).
Apart from the above function, in recent years researchers have proposed that positive emotions also
have alleviate release function, this function can be expressed from two aspects: First, the negative
emotion get activated that can repair by autonomic nerve calm (Catalino & Fredrickson, 2011). For
example, when people anger, the phenomenon such as his heart speeds up, adrenal hormone secretion
and blood pressure increases, positive emotions can help the body quiet and ease anger. Second,
positive emotions can repair the agile thinking after the individual feels the subjective negative emotion.
For example, in solving complex problems, positive emotions can help individuals explore new
thinking paths and create the ability to solve new problems (Kobau et al., 2011).
The negative influence of stress on undergraduates’ mental health has been supported by many
researches. Previous studies have focused on the generation and change of negative emotions in the
face of stress. With the rise of positive psychology, more and more researchers have begun to pay
attention to the evolution of positive emotions under stress in recent years. Studies have shown that in
the stress environment, if the individual is able to maintain the balance of positive emotions and
negative emotions, namely while maintaining the balance of their own state of positive emotions and
negative emotional inside body will help improve the flexibility of individual interpersonal interaction
and make it easier for individuals to adapt to the environment and produce stable, healthy state of mind
(Davydov et al., 2010). Positive emotions can indirectly affect people’s current mental health level by
influencing people’s expectations of the results of stress.
2.3 Mental Health
The end of last century, the world’s most authoritative WTO (the World Health Organization) gives the
new definition about health, they think that “health is not only the body without the disease, but also in
spirit and social life reached a state of perfect” (Wang, Lu, Du, & Wang, 2011). So in judging whether
a person conforms to the health of the standard, should be from two points of view: physiological and
psychological measurement, only both reached the standard of health and individuals can carry on the
good social adaptation in social life, to create a rich social value of “positive energy”, only the
individual can be defined as healthy.
Maslow points out that if a person wants to achieve self-realization, he should maximize his potential
value and need to achieve mental health. Mckinney points out that mental health should be able to feel
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happiness, with positive willingness and motivation, ability to quickly adapt to society, unity and
harmony ability, realize self-ideal this five aspects as a psychologist with rich clinical experience
(Xiang & Bai, 2010). While Americans Johoda defined mental health as self-cognition, self-growth and
unified stable personality, self-regulation ability, perception of reality and ability to change the
environment and so on. Unify the scholars about the definition of mental health, it is easy to conclude
that have the mental health of the individual must need to have three characteristics: keep the peace of
mind, rich inner experience and good social adaptation ability (Xiang & Bai, 2010).
Through the study of the comprehensive analysis of the literature, we found that there is a significant
negative correlation among resilience as a kind of pressure rebound strength and undergraduates’
negative emotions and physical symptoms, a significant positive correlation among resilience and
optimism, positive emotions. High resilience of students tend to actively cope with stress, be good in
the whole academic situation, have an optimistic upward state in life, show actively adapt to the state in
social life (Hammond, 2004). It’s no doubt that resilience has the positive effect on mental health
(Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Larkin, 2003), but the mechanism of action between resilience and
mental health that is how the resilience to influence mental health still to be further studied.
By reading a large number of literature review, we analyze and integrate, make rational inference, and
determine independent variables and dependent variables. The research tools were developed and
measured, and the theoretical hypotheses were confirmed by quantitative. We determine the theoretical
hypothesis, the measured independent variable and the dependent variable.
H1: Resilience influences general health scores through the mediating effect of positive emotions.
3. Method
3.1 The Participants
This study used the existing cross-sectional data and selected students from Beijing Forestry University
as samples for analysis. The data in the form of random sampling of Beijing Forestry University
freshman to junior students in measurement, questionnaire 220, leakage through the selected a project
too much, the selected answers for regular answer, reverse score and positive scoring title, did not
answer according to requirements of the instructions, contradiction between check title, 21
questionnaires eliminate invalid. In the end, 199 copies of valid questionnaires were recovered, and the
recovery rate was 90.45%, which met the statistical requirements. The descriptive statistical analysis
results of the gender, grade and age of the sample are shown in Table 1.
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Table 1. Descriptive Statistical Analysis Results of Samples
Grade
Gender
Freshman
Sophomore
Junior
Male
Female
Age
17(1)
0
1
0
0
1
18(11)
7
4
0
3
8
19(67)
39
26
1
7
60
20(69)
12
34
20
4
65
21(39)
2
28
8
3
36
22(10)
1
5
3
1
9
23(1)
0
0
1
1
0
24(1)
0
0
1
1
0
Total
199
61
98
34
20
179
3.2 Measuring Tools
This study using the mix of maturity scale questionnaire of “resilience scale, CD-RISC”, “positive and
negative emotions scale, PANAS”, “the general health questionnaire GHQ-20”as the research tools.
3.2.1 Resilience Scale (CD-RISC)
The scale developed by Kathryn M. Connor and Jonathan R. T. Avision is a self-test scale of 25
projects to test the mental resilience of the participants. The scale consists of two dimensions: resilience,
self-confidence and self-efficacy, 0 represents “never”, and 5 represents “always”. Jin Qin in the
Chinese undergraduates’ resilience about this scale test the reliability and validity. According to the
results, alpha is 0.891, has a good stability and internal consistency coefficient with the significant level
(Li & Wei, 2007). Among them, the resilience and confidence component reliability was 0.887, and the
reliability of self-efficacy was 0.741. The scale was validated by validity criterion validity and the life
satisfaction index A (LSIA) was the criterion with significant positive correlation between them.
Therefore, the scale has good criterion validity.
3.2.2 Positive Emotion and Negative Emotion Scale (PANAS)
Subjective well-being is an overall evaluation according to their own standard of their life satisfaction
levels. Waston compiled by positive emotions, negative emotions scale is used to determine the
commonly used subjective well-being scale, divided into two dimensions: positive emotions and
negative emotions, using 5 point method, almost no = 1 point, very much = 5 point (Nezlek & Kuppens,
2008). Zhang Weidong using exploratory factor analysis, verified the scale of the positive emotions
subscales (PA) and negative emotions subscales (PN) two points dimensions have consistency across
different cultures, Chinese and English scale the cumulated variance contribution ratio of the two
factors were 51.31% and 44.25% respectively, closing to Watson’s results. However, the results of the
study also show the problem of measurement deviation. Therefore, the composition of the
measurement items in the PA component of the Chinese scale is not equivalent to the original scale
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(Zhang, Diao, & Schick, 2004). In this study, the total score of the positive emotion scale in the
PANAS scale was only included in the experimental analysis.
3.2.3 General Health Questionnaire GHQ-20
There are 20 questions in the GHQ-20 scale of general health questionnaire, all of which are “whether
or not”, and the subjects need to express their feelings in the last few weeks with “yes” and “no”. In
addition to the seventh and the tenth, the other subjects are all forward scoring, namely choose “yes”
counts one point and choose no counts zero points. The first to ninth of the scale is self-affirmation
scale, which measures the positive aspects of mental health, and the higher the score, the higher the
self-affirmation. The first 10 to 15 questions is depression scale, 16 to 20 questions is anxiety scale, the
scale is to measure the negative direction of the mental health, score level on behalf of the participants
in terms of depression, anxiety level. Li Yan tested alpha, the result for 0.3695, self-esteem, depression,
anxiety, three subscales alpha were 0.6016, 0.5901, 0.6972, each component of the acceptable internal
consistency. The retest reliability of each component was 0.494 of self-affirmation scale, 0.642 of
depression scale and 0.55 of anxiety scale, all of which had good stability. Structural validity was 0.78,
and the Bartley Ball test was 1020.73, with good structural validity. The SCL-90 score was used as the
criterion to test the criterion validity, and it had a good criterion validity (Qiu, Zheng, & Wang, 2008).
4. Results
This study first by SPSS17.0 to analysis descriptive statistical of samples, and then respectively using
SPSS17.0 and AMOS17.0 for sample test, reliability and validity of the last using the SPSS17.0 to
variables, correlation analysis and the mediation effect inspection to verify whether a hypothesis is put
forward.
4.1 Reliability
Reliability is a kind of said scale measure of consistency, stability. Reliability coefficient in the process
of project analysis can be used as the test of homogeneity index, this study determine the reliability
coefficient of the new scale by testing Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient (see Table 2).
Table 2. Internal Consistency Reliability of Each Scale
scale
sample
The number
of items
Cronbach’s
Alpha
subscales
The number of
items
Cronbach’s
Alpha
Resilience
n = 199
25
0.905
Positive
emotions
n = 199
25
0.799
Positive emotions
10
0.842
Negative emotions
10
0.829
General
health
n = 199
20
0.578
self-affirmation
9
0.702
depression
6
0.500
anxiety
5
0.479
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The results showed that the coefficient of resilience and positive emotion was higher than 0.700, 0.905
and 0.799 respectively, and the reliability of each subscales was higher than 0.60. Therefore, the scale
reliability used in this study was better. Generally, the reliability of the general health scale is lower,
but the scales of the depression and the anxiety components all meet the threshold requirement.
According to the overall statistical results of the project, the potential characteristics of b2, b20, g1, g3,
g8, g9, g10 and the remaining items of the scale were not high enough, so these topics were deleted.
4.2 Validity
Validity is used to test whether the measurement tools can be obtained in real situations. In statistics,
the effective validity are the test marked with relevance validity, construct validity, internal validity and
external validity. In social science research, construct validity is very important validity index, it can
not only reflect the correlation of each observation model under the same measurement variables, but
also be able to response the correlation of each observation indexes under different observed variables.
The study of the theoretical framework based on the previous theories, adopt the existing scale revision.
Therefore, this study will be sent by confirmatory factor analysis, testing the construct validity of scale
(see Table 3).
Table 3. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Positive Emotion, Resilience and General Health
Scale
χ²
df
χ²/df
TLI
NFI
CFI
IFI
GFI
RMESA
Resilience
645.183**
231
1.793
0.764
0.802
0.844
0.900
0.902
0.059
Positive emotion
275.302*
171
1.629
0.790
0.803
0.897
0.902
0.919
0.053
General health
566.546*
168
3.372
0.432
0.424
0.498
0.521
0.829
0.065
According to the SEM whole model adaptation degree evaluation model and evaluation index of χ²
value significant probability p < 0.05, χ²/df ≦ 5, TLI value (non standard fitting index), IFI value
(value fitting index), CFI (comparability fitting index) values were greater than 0.90 above, such as
fitting is good, more than 0.7 represents reasonable. The value of RMESA (approximate error
root-mean-square) is less than 0.05, and the fitting degree is good, less than 0.08 represents reasonable.
In the present study, the value of the chi squared value of the resilience scale was significant p < 0.05,
and the value of the χ²/df was 1.793, the CFI was 0.844, the IFI was 0.900, and the RMESA value was
0.059, which was consistent with the fitting test. Therefore, the structure validity of the resilience scale
was good. In the positive emotion scale, there was a significant difference in the value of the χ² value in
the positive emotion scale (p < 0.05), and the value of the χ²/df was 1.629, the CFI was 0.897, the IFI
was 0.902, and the RMESA value was 0.053, which was consistent with the fitting test. Therefore, the
structure validity of the positive emotion scale was good. General health scale χ² value significance (p
< 0.05, χ²/df was 3.372, CFI is 0.498, IFI was 0.521, GFI value of 0.829, RMESA value of 0.065, the
fitting degree is low, but in the acceptable range, it can be assumed that the structure of general health
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scale validity is validated.
4.3 Correlation Study of Resilience, Positive Emotion, Mental Health Score and Self-Affirmation,
Depression and Anxiety Component of Undergraduates
Table 4. Correlation Matrix Diagrams
Resilience
Positive
emotions
General
health
Self-affirmation
Depression
Anxiety
Resilience
1
Positive emotions
0.407*
1
General health
0.324**
0.200**
1
Self-affirmation
0.226**
0.189**
0.590**
1
depression
-0.262**
-0.104
-0.594**
0.079
1
anxiety
-0.280**
-0.202***
-0.722**
-0.119
0.534**
1
Note. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
Correlation analysis results show that here is relationship among the resilience positive emotions, and
general health, i resilience and positive emotions (r = 0.407, p < 0.05), resilience and general mental
health (r = 0.324 p < 0.01), positive emotions and general mental health (r = 0.200, p < 0.01), there
were positive correlation. Resilience, positive emotions and general health dimension correlation
analysis results show that there is positive correlation between resilience and self-esteem (r = 0.226, p <
0.01) negative relationship among resilience, depression and anxiety (r = 0.262, p < 0.01), (r = 0.280, p
< 0.01). There is a positive correlation between positive emotion and self-affirmation (r = 0.189, p <
0.01), a negatively correlation between positive emotion and anxiety (r = -0.202, p < 0.001). Results
showed no significant correlation between positive emotions and depression which not tally with the
expectations, the possible reason is that this scale cannot fully assess depression this trait contain all the
features, in other words, the representation of the subscales are not able to accurately depression this
concept.
4.4 Internal Mechanism Test of Resilience and Mental Health—The Mediating Effect of Positive
Emotion
4.4.1 Mediating Effect of Positive Emotions between Resilience and Mental Health (H1)
This study resilience as the independent variable (X), general health as the dependent variable (Y), the
positive emotions as intermediary variables (M) the inspection method for intermediary effect of
regression coefficient in turn (see Table 5).
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Table 5. Positive Emotions in Resilience and General Health Mediating Effect test
Variable
Equation 1:
General Health
Equation 2:
Positive Emotion
Equation 3:
General Health
Step 1
Step 2
Step 1
Step 2
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Gender
0.298
0.952
-1.868
-1.427
0.298
0.298
0.999
Grade
-0.152
-0.118
1.750
1.951
-0.152
-0.152
-0.191
Resilience
6.309***
5.998***
6.309***
5.560***
Positive Emotions
0.530
F
0.057
13.315***
3.341*
14.631***
0.057
0.057
10.018***
R
0.024
0.418
0.184
0.434
0.024
0.024
0.419
△R2
-0.010
0.161
0.024
0.176
-0.010
-0.010
0.158
This inspection according to the intermediary effect model:
1
eYX c
,
2
eMX a
,
3
,eYX c
,
YM b
, first test to detect coefficient c, beta testing results of = 0.122 (t = 6.309***) test results
significantly, the next in turn coefficient a and b on the test, test results a beta = 0.181 (t = 5.998***) test
results significantly, b test results was not significant so need Sobel inspection, the inspection results of
Sobel value is less than 0.97. The results show that positive emotion scores in resilience intermediary
effect between general health score and total score was not significant. The H1 hypothesis doesn’t
work.
4.4.2 Mediating Effect of Positive Emotion between Resilience and Self-Affirmation
Table 6. The Mediating Effect of Positive Emotion in Resilience and Self-Affirmation
Variable
Equation 1:
Self-affirmation
Equation 2:
Positive emotion
Equation 3:
Self-affirmation
Step 1
Step 2
Step 1
Step 2
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Gender
1.053
1.449
-1.868
-1.427
1.053
1.449
1.631
Grade
-0.095
-0.069
1.750
1.951
-0.095
-0.069
-0.316
Resilience
3.692***
5.998***
3.692***
2.699**
Positive Emotions
1.760*
F
0.561
4.942*
3.341*
14.631***
0.561
4.942*
4.522*
R
0.077
0.270
0.184
0.434
0.077
0.270
0.296
△R2
-0.005
0.058
0.024
0.176
-0.005
0.058
0.088
Test model according to the intermediary effect: first test to detect coefficient c, beta testing results of =
0.036 (t = 3.692***) test results significantly, the next in turn coefficient a and b on the test, test results a
beta = 0.181 (t = 5.998***) test result significantly s, the beta testing results of b = 0.036 (t = 1.845*), c
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test results of the beta = 0.011 (t = 2.651**), the results show that positive emotion scores in resilience
total and partial mediation effect between self-affirmation scores (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. The Mediating Effect of Positive Emotion in Resilience and Self-Affirmation
Note. PE = Positive emotions, RL = Resilience, SA = Self-affirmation.
5. Discussion
5.1 Correlation between Resilience and Mental Health (Self-Affirmation, Depression, Anxiety) among
Undergraduates
In this study, we found that resilience has a positive correlation between positive emotion and
self-affirmation, and has negative correlation with depression and anxiety. The results of this study are
the same as that of the famous psychologist Fredrickson. In his research, have seen 911 terrorist strikes
the resilience and the terrorist events for all the citizens of New York City after the positive emotion
experience and the rise of positive correlation between self-esteem and negative correlation between
anxiety, depression (Wen, Hou, & Zhang, 2005). In this study, undergraduates with a higher resilience
for the life of all kinds of events will occur through self-affirmation, positive self-talk and optimistic
attitude towards life to solve problem, they tend to use humor, flexible thinking, emptying technology
such as body and mind to trigger positive emotions, thus to reduce all kinds of stressful events in life
causing consequences to health of body and mind, to reduce depression, anxiety and so on in a life of
confusion, have higher self-esteem, and that the generally high scores of mental health in general. This
kind of students urge themselves in academic, career, life more flexibility by positive emotions, and
give all kinds of accident more flexible solutions, settled with negative emotions, the adverse
physiological and psychological reaction of the resistance, has good adaptability to society, to make
full use of social resources, self-esteem awareness in the social activities, to raise their well-being, to
create greater wealth for the society.
5.2 The Internal Mechanism of Resilience and Mental Health—The Mediating Effect of Positive
Emotions
Through data analysis, this study found that the resilience and positive emotions of the contemporary
university students, to cope with the negative events, to avoid depression, anxiety has certain
improvement effect. Which through the intermediary effect analysis and verification results show that
PE
RL
SA
5.998***
1.760*
C=3.692
C’=2.699*
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the resilience can directly affect the self-esteem of undergraduates score, and through the positive
emotions have indirect influence on it.
Resilience have a direct effect on the mental health of the people the reason might be, according to
analysis of resilience “adjusting the model”, in contemporary society, with strong science and
technology of informatization, digital technology, under the influence of individual in all aspects of
development for undergraduates. The cultivation of comprehensive quality will bring higher
requirements, the effect of the social stress, universality, it is easier to make the undergraduates’
depression and anxiety on mental health damaging tremendous psychological problems, resilience
higher undergraduates, however can solve a stress events, revealed by their perseverance,
self-improvement, optimistic good psychological traits, such as to reduce the complex of unhealthy
influence brought by the pressure source and, in turn, can reduce depression, anxiety, enhance the
confidence of the stressful events, solve a more healthy psychological environment.
Resilience mediation effect on people’s self-esteem may according to the positive emotion is the cause
of “broadening-building model” theory proposed by the positive emotions can increase the threshold of
attention and thinking, thus people can get through the wider evaluation model, to evaluate themselves
from multiple azimuth, individuals can choose from several aspects as conducive to personal growth,
complete self evaluation, achieve the goal of aspect and self-esteem scores increased accordingly.
This study positive emotions in the mediation between the resilience and general mental health effect
was not significant, the possible reason is that this study choose the sex ratio of the sample, the boy was
too less, but in real life, boys to girls less, facing the social restraint they can often through sports,
video games and so on multi-channel outlet to link the pain of pressure, have a higher positive emotion
(Chiu et al., 2006). This study also found that positive emotions in resilience and intermediary effect
between depression and anxiety were not significant, Clark and Watson et al. Studies show that on the
one hand, anxiety must belong to a relatively lower level characteristics of positive emotions and
depression does not necessarily belong to this feature (Beblo et al., 2012); On the other hand, according
to the theory of cognitive behavior therapy, we believe that the depression is likely due to the
unreasonable thinking of reasons (Hamilton, Kitzman, & Guyotte, 2006). In this study, in response to
this on the one hand, the effect of cognitive evaluation may be strict in depression itself, so in the future
research should further discussions on this issue.
Through the analysis of the study this time, we discuss the influence of the resilience to general mental
health, on the one hand we can not ignore the impact of positive emotions, needs the ascension of the
undergraduates’ self-efficacy, positive emotions to develop in-depth education effect. At the same time,
positive emotions generated by partial intermediary effect to remind us that positive emotions are
certainly influenced (Chen, 2017), but the influence of ability is limited, so can’t simply positive
emotions through ascension to improve undergraduates to cope with stress, enhance self-confidence,
keep the stability of the mental health problems. So, if you want to further improve the mental health
level of undergraduates, we should continue to broaden the exploring study of other related factors
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affecting the students mental health, and in view of the different psychological health promotion of
individual differences, thus all-round multi-angle promote the overall level of the mental health of
undergraduates.
6. Conclusion
University is the cradle of talent training, focus on undergraduates’ mental health problems, from the
source of our social economy, science and technology, national defense, education, and other areas of
the more rapid and efficient development lay a solid foundation. This research through the
questionnaire distribution and recovery of statistical methods of Beijing forestry undergraduates’
mental health status of statistical analysis to the following conclusion: there is a relationship among
resilience, positive emotions, general health, there was a positive correlation between resilience and the
positive emotion between psychological resilience and psychological health, between positive emotion
and psychological health. Resilience, positive emotions and general health dimension of the correlation
analysis results show that the positive relationship between resilience and self-esteem, and negative
correlation between depression and anxiety, respectively. There is a positive correlation between
positive emotion and self-affirmation, and there is a negative correlation with anxiety. The positive
emotion has some mediating effect between resilience and self-affirmation, which can reduce the
prediction coefficient of psychological resilience from 0.042 to 0.036.
Therefore, we are to discuss the influence of the resilience to general mental health, on the one hand,
we can not ignore the impact of positive emotions, need the ascension of the undergraduates’
self-efficacy and positive emotions to develop further education, and partial mediation effect produced
by positive emotions reminds us that positive emotions is to influence, but the influence of ability is
limited, so can’t simply positive emotions through ascension to improve undergraduates to cope with
stress, enhance self-confidence, keep a stable psychological health problems. As a researcher, we
should further explore the factors that influence the psychological health of undergraduates, and set up
an effective psychological health education course to improve the mental health of undergraduates.
Acknowledgments
The research is supported by grants from the National Social Science Fund of China and National
Natural Science Foundation of China awarded to the first author. Project numbers are 14CGL073 and
71672186. The research is also supported by Shandong Social Science Planning Fund Program-Study
and the Subjects in Humanities and Social Sciences, Project numbers are 16CJYJ15 and 17YJC710040
respectively. Finally, appreciate the University of California, Santa Barbara, Psychological and Brain
Sciences, Professor Jonathan Schooler and Stanford University, Guest lecturer of the STS Program,
Professor Henry Etzkowitz’s help to our study.
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