Developmental Characteristics of University Students’ Coping Styles and Their Impact on Psychological Health: A Longitudinal Study

To explore the developmental characteristics of university students’ coping styles and their impact, and to provide scientific base for psychological well-being education. This study administered both cross-sectional and longitudinal questionnaire surveys on 660 university students. Results of the study indicated the following:‘Action taking’, ‘accepting’and ‘active self-control’ are the top three coping styles adopted by all of the students of different grades; coping styles of undergraduates changed significantly during the four years of college life(F=2.498, P=0.000), but they did not become more positive with the increasing of the grades;‘venting of emotions’ and ‘turning to religion’ had significant negative influences on all of the indicators of mental health, while “stagnating and give up” had significant negative influences on interpersonal sensibility, depression and total psychological health(P<0.05). The paper discussed the above- mentioned results and also gave some suggestions on the education of psychological health. More attention is necessary to be paid to undergraduates’negative coping style;Psychological education practice should be based on the characteristics of different grade.