Psychological Development and Education ›› 2015, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (4): 475-484.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2015.04.12

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The Relationship between College Freshmen's Meaning in Life and Depression: Examining the Interacting and Mediating Effects

ZHU Haiteng1, YAO Xiaoxue2   

  1. 1. Department of Army Ideological and Political Education, Army Officer Academy of PLA, Hefei 230031;
    2. School of Preschool and Special Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062
  • Online:2015-07-15 Published:2015-07-15

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Abstract: On the basis of Frankl(1963)'s logotherapy perspective and Steger et al(2006)'s dual construct of meaning in life (i.e., presence of meaning, POM, and search for meaning, SFM), this paper aims to explore the mechanism underlying the effect of meaning in life on college freshmen's depression and testify possible interacting and mediating effects. A battery of questionnaires was administered to 435 college freshmen from a college of science and technology and a comprehensive college in a provincial capital in East China, and the results showed that: (1)Freshmen's POM was negatively associated with boredom proneness and depression but positively associated with hope. Nevertheless, the correlations between SFM and POM as well as SFM and depression were non-significant statistically. (2)The interacting effect of POM and SFM on depression was proven significant, that is, POM played an optimal protective role against depression especially among those who were on a relatively low level of SFM. (3)Boredom proneness and hope served as parallel multiple mediators within the POM-depression process, with the mediating effect of boredom proneness more salient than hope.

Key words: college freshmen, presence of meaning, search for meaning, boredom proneness, hope, depression

CLC Number: 

  • 3844
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