A Research On The Mental Health And Social Comparison Of University Students

Mental health of university students increasingly became a hotspot that people concerned and investigated. Researches had explored the causes that could affect mental health of university students in different dimensions. Social comparison was that the individual compared his character quality, standpoint and behavior with those of others. It made new self-perception, self-circumstances perception and life-quantity perception, which decided the individual's self-concept, emotional state, and the expectation of future to a certain extent. In short, social comparison could directly influence mental health. The problems of university students' mental health mainly concluded depression, anxiety, bigotry, and inferiority, which resulted from social comparison. If the individual did not change the mode of social comparison, these problems would not be resolved completely. Therefore, social comparison should be an apt dimension to study the university students' mental health, especially some prominent problems. Based on overviews of former researches, interviews with some students, the theoretical hypothesis and the results of open-ended questions, the preliminary questionnaire was formed. Factor analysis helped to form the formal questionnaire of university students'social comparison (USSC). The reliability and the validity were testified by structural equation model and other special means. After investigating 378 university students with the symptom checklist 90(SCL-90) and the formal USSC, the relation between the mental health and the characteristics of social comparison was explored. The results showed that: 1. The level of most university students'mental health was good. On the ten dimensions of SCL-90 and the general symptomatic index, students showed statistically significant grade differences. The mental state of juniors was worse than that of other three grades students. 2. The USSC was of high reliability and fair validity. The questionnaire can be regarded as a kind of evaluative implement on characteristics of university students'social comparison. The characteristics of university students'social comparison were composed of six dimensions named as "control traits", "comparison disposition", "emotional perception", "reference", "prominence", and "compromise". 3. The characteristics of university students'social comparison were relatively positive. On the five dimensions of "control traits", "comparison disposition", "emotional perception", "reference", and "compromise", students showed statistically significant grade differences, also on the whole questionnaire. The characteristics of juniors were more negative than that of other three grades students. 4. There were significant correlations between the mental health and the characteristics of social comparison. The negative characteristics of social comparison were very important cognitive factors influencing on the mental health of university students. The characteristics of social comparison could significantly predict university students'mental health. Five kinds of symptom such as "somatization", "obsessive-compulsive", "interpersonal sensitivity", "anxiety", "photic anxiety", and the general symptomatic index could significantly predict the characteristics of university students'social comparison. 5. The score of the high symptom subjects on "control traits", "comparison disposition", "emotional perception", "prominence", "compromise"and the whole USSC, were higher than that of the low symptom subjects. But the score of the high symptom subjects on "reference"was lower than that of the low symptom subjects. The general symptomatic index of negative social comparison subjects was higher than that of positive social comparison subjects.