The effects of daily stress on positive and negative mental health: Mediation through self-efficacy

Résumé 0

Daily stressors, compared to traumatic events, are increasingly recognized as importantrisk factors for mental health. The role of general self-efficacy on the relationship betweendaily stress and aspects of mental health has not yet been examined. Taking into accountthe dual factor model of mental health, which postulates that mental health is more thanthe absence of psychopathological symptoms, we tested mediation effects of self-efficacyseparately for positive and negative mental health. Total, direct and indirect effects wereestimated using data from a large nationally representative German population sample (N =1,031) by bootstrapped mediation analyses providing 95% bias corrected bootstrap confidenceintervals. Results indicated self-efficacy as a mediator of the effects of daily stressors on mentalhealth, with superior effect sizes for positive compared to negative mental health. Mediationeffects were replicated in student samples from Germany (N = 394), Russia (N = 604) and China(N = 8,669). Findings suggest that self-efficacy operates as a buffer of daily stress. However, afull mediation model was not supported as multiple psychological resources can have protectiveeffects. This study provides the first transnational evidence for different stress-buffer effectsfor the two dimensions of mental health.© 2015 Asociación Espa˜nola de Psicología Conductual. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).