Interpersonal adaptation refers to individuals consciously actively adjusting their own concepts and behavior patterns, providing warmth and support to others, establishing and maintaining a social atmosphere full of goodwill, so as to achieve the purpose of communicating well with others, establishing harmonious relationships, and adapting to modern society.
The current society is in the information age of rapid development. The relationship between individuals and others has gradually become increasingly complex with multiple levels and channels. Interpersonal adaptation plays an increasingly important role in personal mental health and future development. The emergence of interpersonal adaptation problems can easily cause psychological imbalance and affect the development of individual mental health.
College students are a special group. They have just entered an independent living environment, but they do not have a mature mind and good self-control ability for the time being. They act independently according to their own mood, and are prone to interpersonal maladaptive problems.
Gratitude is a kind of gratitude and recognition, that is, an individual's inner recognition of the help given to him by others, society, etc., and the idea of wanting to repay. Gratitude is a traditional virtue that has the function of moral stimulation and moral strengthening.
The characteristics and behaviors of contemporary college students, as well as the influence of external social conditions, make them focus too much on themselves and ignore their gratitude to their parents, friends, and society, resulting in a series of problems.
Abuse or even kill parents, have difficulty adapting to interpersonal relationships, take help from others as a matter of course, and lack prosocial behavior. The existence of these problems will not only have side effects on the development of personal morality, but will also have a profound impact on the moral level of the entire society. Therefore, it is very necessary to study the gratitude psychology of college students.
Cognitive emotional regulation style refers to the efforts made by individuals from the perspective of cognitive style in order to better adapt to the requirements of the external environment, have a more balanced inner world, and resolve their own emotional distress.
An individual's choice of cognitive and emotional regulation methods is closely related to his family, age, gender and social environment. In addition, it can have an impact on positive psychological factors such as individual subjective well-being and social adaptation, as well as negative psychological factors such as anxiety and depression.
Precisely because of its influence on multiple psychological factors, cognitive emotion regulation is becoming more and more important in the field of psychology. The subjects of the
study were college students in a university in Henan. It used a questionnaire survey to study and analyze the current interpersonal adaptation status of college students in my country and the relationship between gratitude, cognitive emotion regulation and interpersonal adaptation. It tried to provide a new way to intervene in the interpersonal adaptation of college students from the perspective of gratitude and cognitive emotion regulation.
1. Research on the relationship between gratitude, cognitive emotion regulation and interpersonal adaptation in college students
(1) The relationship between gratitude and interpersonal adaptation
The research results show that the overall gratitude of college students and its four dimensions are significantly positively related to interpersonal adaptation, which is consistent with the research results of Zhang Gengli and Liu Yinping. Zhang Gengli's research results prove that there is a significant positive correlation between gratitude and social adaptation. In this study, interpersonal adaptation is one of the dimensions of social adaptation.
In a study of gratitude, school adaptation and social support among higher vocational students, Liu Yinping found that gratitude is significantly positively correlated with school adaptation, and interpersonal adaptation is one of the dimensions of school adaptation.
Because personal gratitude is not innate, it is influenced by the outside world such as family and society during the process of growth. Therefore, in social life, it is crucial for individuals to learn to be grateful, feel the warmth and kindness from others, and repay them in return.
If a person is used to being grateful to others and society, his/her happiness will increase, making it easier to integrate into society.
Therefore, when college students face interpersonal adaptation problems, the more grateful they are, the more positive they will have, and their positive cognitive and emotional regulation will be enhanced accordingly. This suggests that we can improve college students’ interpersonal adaptation by changing their gratitude.
(2) The relationship between gratitude and cognitive emotional regulation
When we analyzed the data, we divided cognitive emotional regulation into positive cognitive emotional regulation and negative cognitive emotional regulation, and calculated the total scores of the two dimensions respectively.
The research results show that there is a significant positive correlation between positive cognitive emotional regulation and gratitude overall and the three dimensions of gratitude to parents, gratitude to society, and gratitude to nature, but the correlation with feelings of deprivation is not significant. Negative cognitive emotion regulation has a significant positive correlation with gratitude in general and gratitude for nature, and a significant negative correlation with gratitude to parents, gratitude to society, and feelings of deprivation.
This result is supported by scholars Luo Li, Zhu and Yu. Their study found a significant correlation between gratitude and cognitive emotion regulation, and gratitude positively predicted positive emotion regulation.
People with a high sense of gratitude are full of gratitude for the things that happen in life and the people they meet, and have more social support and prosocial behavior.
People who know how to be grateful to their parents, society and nature are more likely to choose positive emotional regulation when encountering setbacks, such as actively refocusing and actively reevaluating, and can better live in harmony with others and build friendly relationships.
(3) The relationship between cognitive emotional regulation and interpersonal adaptation
The research results show that the positive correlation between positive cognitive emotional regulation and interpersonal adaptation is significant, but the correlation between negative cognitive emotional regulation and interpersonal adaptation is not significant.
Because in social life, people who are accustomed to choosing positive emotional regulation have more positive energy. When they encounter problems, they do not complain, do not shirk responsibility to others, and actively look for solutions to problems.
and increase the confidence and courage to face life through reconstruction. Such people will naturally be more likely to win the recognition and welcome of others and have high interpersonal adaptability.
(4) The mediating role of positive cognitive and emotional regulation in the relationship between gratitude and interpersonal adaptation
The study adopted the mediating effect test procedure proposed by Wen Zhonglin and other scholars to test the mediating role of positive cognitive and emotional regulation in the relationship between gratitude and interpersonal adaptation.
The results found that when the variable of positive cognitive and emotional regulation was introduced, although the regression coefficient of gratitude on interpersonal adaptation decreased, it was still at a significant level, indicating that positive cognitive and emotional regulation played a partial mediating role between gratitude and interpersonal adaptation. The Bootstrap method was further used to test the partial mediating effect of positive cognitive emotion regulation.
This research result shows that college students who often use positive cognitive emotion regulation have relatively high interpersonal adaptability, have the ability to control their emotions, can choose positive emotion regulation methods, face difficulties in life positively, and choose rational analysis and acceptance when encountering setbacks.
is more inclined to refocus and plan actively, is better able to solve problems, and has a higher sense of gratitude, thereby improving interpersonal adaptability.
This enlightens us that if we want to improve college students' interpersonal adaptability, on the one hand, we can encourage them to adopt positive cognitive and emotional methods, and on the other hand, we can directly improve their sense of gratitude.
2. Research suggestions
College students are in a special period of physical and mental development. Their minds are constantly maturing and becoming more and more stable. They are entering a new university life. Good interpersonal adaptability can enable college students to quickly adapt to the new environment, integrate into the group, and form harmonious interpersonal relationships with classmates and teachers. This is conducive to healthy physical and mental growth and helps them successfully enter society in the future.
Therefore, helping college students improve their awareness of gratitude and increase positive emotional regulation methods through various channels, thereby improving their interpersonal adaptation and improving their mental health, should be highly valued by mental health educators in colleges and universities. Based on the comprehensive analysis of this study and previous research results, we make the following suggestions:
(1) According to the research results on the current situation of interpersonal adaptation of college students, most college students have good interpersonal adaptation status, but there are still some college students who have interpersonal adaptation problems, and we should attach great importance to this.
Leaders discovered through group activities that students with interpersonal adaptation problems actually have a strong desire to express themselves, but there is no suitable atmosphere and conditions for self-expression. Sometimes they want to express but no one listens, and sometimes the words they say do not express their meaning and are misleading.
There is no appropriate environment for students to express themselves, and lack of communication is the main reason for interpersonal adjustment difficulties. Therefore, it is recommended that parents and teachers create a warm and accepting atmosphere for them at home and school, encourage them to express themselves, listen carefully to their thoughts and wishes, give them enough respect, and help them grow up healthily and happily.
Schools should find ways to enrich students' campus life, such as promoting group tutoring, training school teachers, or hiring professional teachers to conduct group activities with different themes, giving students more opportunities to communicate with each other, giving introverted students a chance to express themselves, helping them get out of communication difficulties and win a warm and harmonious interpersonal environment.
(2) Based on the research results on the relationship among college students’ gratitude, cognitive emotion regulation, and interpersonal adaptation, it is proposed that college students’ gratitude awareness and positive cognitive emotion regulation should be gradually improved to improve college students’ interpersonal adaptability.
allows college students to feel the importance of others' help to themselves, and allows them to realize that others' help to them is not taken for granted, and inspires them to be grateful for the kindness they encounter in life.
urges college students to maintain regular contact with their parents, find ways to alleviate conflicts between problematic students and their parents, and express gratitude to their parents for their upbringing; organize outings regularly to allow college students to get close to nature and feel the magic and beauty of nature. Organize volunteer activities in nursing homes and other public welfare activities to provide opportunities and platforms for college students to be grateful to the society and give back to the society.
arranges expert lectures and other activities to allow college students to better understand their own mental health, understand emotions, and control their emotions. It encourages college students to use more positive emotion regulation strategies, face the difficulties encountered in life and study positively, and live an optimistic and strong life.
