Affiliations: College of Education Science, Weinan Normal University, Weinan, China. E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: BACKGROUND:The long-term separation of parents and children as well as the incomplete family structure affect the mental health development of left-behind children and the formation of healthy personality, good interpersonal relationships and positive coping styles in adulthood. At present, there is insufficient empirical investigations on the mental resilience of left-behind children. OBJECTIVE:It is aimed to understand the mental health of left-behind children and explore the characteristics of mental resilience, self-esteem and emotional processing bias, as well as social coping styles. METHODS:The random sampling method is used to select the left-behind children as the research subject. The general demographic information questionnaire, RSCA (Resilience Scale for Chinese Adolescent), emotional self-rating scale, SES (Self-Esteem Scale), and coping style questionnaire are used for the survey. Also, the experiments on cognitive processing bias effects of self-esteem and emotion are further carried out. RESULTS:There are differences in demographic variables in mental resilience, self-esteem level, emotional level, and social coping styles. The low mental resilience group shows a processing bias towards low praise words, while the high mental resilience group shows a processing bias towards high praise words. At a low level of self-esteem, there is an interaction between mental resilience and self-esteem on low praise words. Mental resilience has a significant effect on the cognitive processing bias of emotion. Under the induction of positive emotions, the high mental resilience group responds significantly more slowly to the negative words than the low mental resilience group. Under the induction of negative emotions, the high mental resilience group responds significantly faster to the negative words than the low mental resilience group. CONCLUSIONS:Promoting the mental health education of left-behind children can start from enhancing positive emotions, reducing negative emotions, developing high self-esteem, and improving mature coping styles.
Keywords: Left-behind children, mental resilience, self-esteem, emotions, social coping
