Correlations between Levin's affirming messages, developmental history, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms in college students.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between Levin's affirming messages, developmental history, self-esteem levels, and depressive symptoms in a nonclinical sample of college students. It was hypothesized that students who received and internalized the affirming messages through life will report high levels of self-esteem, few traumatic events, few depressive symptoms, high frequency of automatic positive thoughts, and low frequency of automatic negative thoughts. Participants were 108 undergraduate college students at Emporia State University during the spring 2005 semester. Participants responded to a demographic questionnaire and to the Affirming Messages Self-Perception Scale (AMS), the Childhood Trauma and Adversity Questionnaire-Adapted Version (CTAQ), the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire-Revise (ATQ-R; Kendall, 1989), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE; Rosenberg, 1965), and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, 1996). Pearson correlation coefficients indicated significant but low correlations between the AMS, CTAQ, positive thoughts on the ATQ-R, and RSE. There were no significant correlations between the AMS, negative thoughts on the ATQ-R, and the BDI. Additional analyses showed that women's scores on the AMS were higher than men, indicating a slight gender difference on the AMS. Subscale 2 on the AMS, the power of doing, was the most predictive dimension since it was significantly correlated with every instrument. Sexual abuse was significantly negatively correlated with scores on the AMS, and sexual and emotional abuse were found to be negatively correlated with scores on the BDI. For future studies, income levels, parents' level of education, gender differences, and parents-child relationship when growing up should be studied as factors controlling the correlations between the AMS and the instruments. It is also suggested to replicate the study with different populations and to validate the CTAQ and the AMS.