Acceptance by Others and Mental Health of the College Freshmen:The Mediating Role of Self-acceptance

Objective To explore the influence of acceptance by others and self-acceptance on mental health of college freshmen , and the pathway of the influence .Methods A total of 3326 freshmen(1630 males,1696 females) of a university in Shanghai were sur-veyed with the Self -Acceptance Questionnaire ( SAQ),the Chinese version of the Questionnaire of Acceptability to Others ( QAO),A sub-scale of the Acceptance of Others Questionnaire ,and the Chinese version of Kessler Psychological Distress Scale ( Kessler-10 ) .Re-sults ①The correlation between the scores of acceptance by others and self-acceptance was significant (r=0.551,P<0.01),and the two scores were significantly correlated to the score of K -10(r1=-0.561,P<0.01;r2=-0.522,P<0.01).②The self-acceptance plays partly intermediary role(41.4%) on impact of the acceptance by others on K -10 scores of college freshmen.Conclusion The acceptance by others of the college freshmen can inhibit their risks of mental health troubles directly ,and indirectly as well ,by promoting their self-acceptance .