大學生害羞、情緒表達矛盾與心理困擾之關聯：檢驗網路自我揭露之中介及調節效果

The Relationships among Shyness, Ambivalence over Emotional Expression and Psychological Distress in College Students: Examining the Mediating and Moderating Roles of Internet Self-Disclosure

大學生常出現的心理困擾以情緒與人際關係為主。過去文獻指出，高情緒表達矛盾者常面臨較多心理困擾，而害羞者也常面臨較多的人際困擾之問題。據此，本研究認為，害羞者可能較容易感到情緒表達矛盾，因而較易產生心理困擾。另外，大學生相較於其他階段更常使用網路，而網路的特性可能會吸引害羞、高情緒表達矛盾的個體進行網路自我揭露，但過去文獻對於網路自我揭露和心理困擾的關係仍無定論。據此，本研究欲探討大學生的害羞、情緒表達矛盾與心理困擾之間的關聯，同時提出兩項競爭模式來檢驗網路自我揭露在其中所扮演的角色。本研究以網路問卷招募臺灣公私立大學生365名，研究工具包含「害羞量表修訂版」、「症狀檢核量表」、「情緒表達矛盾量表」、「網路自我揭露量表」以及「基本資料與網路使用狀況調查表」。結果顯示，大學生在排除生理性別、社群軟體互動型態後，害羞、情緒表達矛盾對於心理困擾有顯著的預測力，且情緒表達矛盾在害羞與心理困擾間扮演中介變項之角色，而網路自我揭露則在情緒表達矛盾與心理困擾間扮演調節變項之角色。此結果意涵，害羞與情緒表達矛盾在大學生個體的心理困擾間扮演重要角色，且網路自我揭露可能有助於改善情緒表達矛盾對心理困擾的影響。

Past studies indicated that the psychological distress of college students is often related to emotional and interpersonal issues. Even college students’interpersonal problems often lead to depressive symptoms. However, if college students have sufficient social support, they can reduce the likelihood of developing depression and even improve their emotion regulation ability. This shows that college students’social support is closely related to emotional distress. Meanwhile, individuals with higher ambivalence over emotional expression often face more psychological distress, while shy people also often face more interpersonal distress. Based on this, this study believes that shyness may increase level of ambivalence over emotional expression in college students, thereby affecting the degree of their psychological distress.
Furthermore, college students belong to a group of high Internet users, and the characteristics of the Internet may attract individuals with high ambivalence over emotional expression to self-disclose online to compensate for the lack of interpersonal relationships in real life, or as a channel for emotional catharsis. However, whether Internet self-disclosure can actually promote the mental health of college students remains to be determined. Luo and Hancock (2020) reviewed the relevant literature on Internet self-disclosure and found that the causal relationship between Internet self-disclosure and psychological well-being is not clear. They proposed a theoretical framework to be tested based on the“social compensation hypothesis”and the“enhancement hypothesis”to explain the relationship between Internet self-disclosure and psychological well-being, that is, Internet self-disclosure may affect an individual’s psychological well-being through some mechanisms (for example, perceived social support). They also believe that although individuals with certain psychological traits (such as loneliness and social anxiety) are more likely to disclose themselves online, these individuals seem to find it difficult to benefit from Internet self-disclosure. This is mainly because they may be less likely to disclose honest and negative self-disclosures online, making it difficult for them to effectively obtain social support and thus benefit. In other words, although authentic Internet self-disclosure may contribute to enhance psychological well-being, individuals with psychological distress are more likely to present a“false self”on social media, which in turn can lead to greater depression and less connection with others. Luo and Hancock also mentioned that the characteristics of different social media may have some impact, such as the ability to send private messages and anonymity, so individuals with psychological distress may receive more social support.
In order to clarify the above controversy, this study proposed two competing models: One of which is the“serial mediation model,”this is to examine whether shyness can improve college students’psychological distress through the serial mediation model of ambivalence over emotional expression and Internet self-disclosure. The other one is“moderated mediation model,”which believed that shyness can affect college students’psychological distress through ambivalence over emotional expression, and the impact of ambivalence over emotional expression on psychological distress will be moderated by different levels of Internet self-disclosure. Only in this way can we clarify the role of“Internet self-disclosure”between shyness, ambivalence over emotional expression, and psychological distress, and at the same time respond to the research framework proposed by Luo and Hancock on how Internet self-disclosure in social media affects individual psychological well-being.
To examine these hypotheses, this study recruited 365 public and private college students in Taiwan on an online platform and research instruments included the Shyness Scale Revised, Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90R), the Ambivalence Over Emotional Expressiveness Questionnaire, Internet Self-Disclosure Scale and Basic Information and Internet Use Status Questionnaire. Among them, males accounted for 39.0% and females accounted for 61.0%; the average age was 20.56 years old, ranging from 18 to 24 years old; in terms of grade, the majority were third and fourth year university students, accounting for 29.6% and 29.9% respectively.
The results of the study showed that after controlling biological sex and social software interaction patterns, shyness and ambivalence over emotional expression had significant predictive power for psychological distress, and ambivalence over emotional expression played a mediating role between shyness and psychological distress. In addition, the Internet self-disclosure played a moderating role between ambivalence over emotional expression and psychological distress. The present study implied that shyness and ambivalence over emotional expression served important roles in the psychological distress for college students. Meanwhile, the Internet self-disclosure might reduce the positive effect of ambivalence over emotional expression on psychological distress.
This study proposes the following possible reasons: First, shy college students want to adjust their psychological distress through the strategy of Internet self-disclosure. Although this may satisfy a certain degree of belonging needs and self-presentation needs, individuals with psychological distress may be less honest online, or they may fail to effectively obtain social support due to their tendency to make negative Internet self-disclosures. Therefore, the actual influence on adjusting psychological distress is quite limited. Secondly, Internet self-disclosure may be an alternative psychological resource for college students’mental health, with a short-term buffering effect, but it fails to directly improve their psychological distress in the long run. Finally, due to the characteristics of different social software and websites, the authenticity of Internet self-disclosure and its impact on real-life interpersonal and psychological distress vary, that is, Internet self-disclosure can only have the moderating effect on psychological distress under certain conditions. As the moderating effect found in this study, when the level of shyness is higher, it will directly affect the individual’s higher level of psychological distress. At the same time, shyness can also increase the level of psychological distress by increasing the level of ambivalence over emotional expression. However, the increasing effect will decrease with the increase of Internet self-disclosure, and only when Internet self-disclosure is extremely high, shyness will no longer affect the level of psychological distress through ambivalence over emotional expression.
Therefore, clinical practice should focus on improving the psychological distress of shy college students caused by ambivalence over emotional expression. Past research has shown that people with high ambivalence over emotional expression perceive lower social support and more often use coping strategies such as avoidance, less social support seeking, positive appraisal, and venting. With the advent of the Internet age, the boundary between the Internet and real-life interpersonal relationships has become increasingly blurred. Some scholars believe that the Internet can become a channel for individuals to compensate for interpersonal and emotional adjustments, and even reduce psychological distress. However, the results of this study show that Internet self-disclosure does not directly predict psychological distress, but it has a moderating effect between shyness, ambivalence over emotional expression, and psychological distress. Therefore, the avoidance and lack of social support coping patterns of people with ambivalence over emotional expression may not differ between real-life and online situations, which means that people with ambivalence over emotional expression are less likely to seek emotional expression and interpersonal support online, and Internet self-disclosure has limited influence on real-life interpersonal relationships or on changing psychological distress.
Based on this, when working with college students with high shyness traits, clinical practitioners should guide clients to be aware of their emotional states, and assist them in developing multiple emotion regulation strategies or increasing their own psychological capital, and enhancing interpersonal support in real life, so that they do not only use Internet self-disclosure as a means to compensate for real interpersonal difficulties. This can reduce the psychological distress of highly shy college students caused by ambivalence over emotional expression.