Emotional distress when studying sensitive topics in psychology,and its relationship with hardiness and mental health |
| |
| Authors: | Celine Leslie Amanda D Hutchinson |
| |
| Institution: | School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, University of South Australia, Magill, SA, Australia |
| |
| Abstract: | This observational, cross-sectional study examined students’ retrospective recall of emotional distress when studying sensitive topics in psychology, and whether hardiness had a mediated pathway to emotional distress through a mental health condition (MHC). Psychology undergraduates (155 women, 34 men) from South Australian universities completed self-report questionnaires assessing hardiness, retrospective measures of emotional distress when studying a range of topics, their concurrent MHC and lifetime cumulative trauma. As hypothesised, students reported more emotional distress to sensitive topics relative to nonsensitive ones, p?r?=??.69). Hardiness was significantly negatively correlated with MHC, p?r?=??.38). Causal mediation analysis revealed, as predicted, that MHC mediated the effect of hardiness on emotional distress (p?
|
| |
| Keywords: | Emotional distress psychology students sensitive topics mental health hardiness |
|
|
