Relationship of self-disclosure with personality characteristics,loneliness and mental health in college students

doi:10.3321/j.issn:1673-8225.2004.33.018

Abstract：BACKGROUND: Self-disclosure is related to one' s interpersonal relationship and personal physical and mental health as well, and in the recent forty years, it has been a very important research subject in the fields such as social psychology, clinical psychology, and interpersonal relationship, etc.,and studied extensively abroad. How is self-disclosure related to the perscnality characteristics, loneliness, and mental health in Chinese college students?OBJECTIVE: To understand the relationships of self-disclosure with personality characteristics, loneliness and mental health in Chinese college students, and provide guidance for these students to adapt themselves to interpersonal relationship better and promote their psychological health.DESIGN: A cross-sectional study.SETTING: Department of Social Science, School of Social Science, Beijing University of Technology; Developmental Psychology Institute of Beijing Normal University.PARTICIPANTS: Totally 424 college freshmen and first-year postgraduates (consisted of 224 males and 200 females), aging from 17 to 37 years with a mean of(22 ± 3) years, were selected from a university of technology in Beijing.INTERVENTIONS: The test was carried out with the cluster sampling method. Group measurement was carried out with Jourad' s Self-Disclosure Questionnaire(JSDQ), Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Short Scale for Chinese(EPQ-RSC), Loneliness Scale(UCLA) and Self Checklist-90 ( SCL-90 ).MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Self-disclosure and its relationship with personality characteristics, loneliness and psychological health in college students were measured with JSDQ and EPQ-RSC, JSDQ and UCLA, JSDQ and SCL-90.RESULTS: Self-disclosure was significantly positively related to extraversion (r=0.29, P ＜0.01) and inversely to loneliness(r = -0. 36, P ＜0.01) in these college students. Loneliness was more strongly felt in students with low level of self-disclosure than in those with high-level self-disclosure( r = -0.36,P ＜ 0. 01 ) . Self-disclosure showed significant inverse relation to the depression factor in SCL-90 in these students ( r = - 0. 16, P ＜ 0. 01 ).CONCLUSION: The variation of the levels of self-disclosure has certain relations to loneliness or to personality characteristics and emotional experience.