The Relationship between Self-Criticism and Sensitivity to Rejection with Psychological Distress in Female Students: Mediating Role of Self-silencing

This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of self-silencing components in the relationship between self-criticism and rejection sensitivity with the psychological distress of female students. The research sample was 381 female students from the Salman Farsi University of Kazerun who participated in this study virtually by responding to the questionnaire link. This link is a set of items related to the four questionnaires: Levels of self-criticism (Thompson & Zuroff, 2004), Sensitivity to Rejection Questionnaire (Downey & Feldman, 1996), Silencing the Self Scale (Jack & Dill, 1992), and the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). The results of the analysis performed using the structural equation modeling in AMOS-22 software showed that the levels of self-criticism and sensitivity to rejection, in addition to direct effects on various aspects of students' psychological distress, also affected the extent of their psychological distresses indirectly by mediating to two components of self-silencing: externalized self-perception and divided-self. The findings of this study especially emphasize the importance of the mediating role of two components of self-silencing (externalized self-perception and divided-self) in the effect of sensitivity to rejection and self-criticism of young girls on their psychological distress.