ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1544629
The Impact of Core Self-Evaluation on Social Anxiety Among Male Nursing Interns: The Mediating Role of Self-Acceptance
Provisionally accepted
- Pingdingshan University, Pingdingshan, China
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Objective: This study aimed to examine the mediating role of self-acceptance in the relationship between core self-evaluation and social anxiety. Specifically, it aimed to investigate the effects of core self-evaluation and the impact of self-acceptance on social anxiety among male nursing students during their internship. Methods: A purposive sampling method was employed to select a sample of 149 male nursing students from eight tertiary hospitals in Henan Province. A questionnaire survey was conducted using the Core Self-Esteem Scale and the Social Anxiety Scale. The Scale of Self-Acceptance was also administered, and the data were statistically analyzed using SPSS software with the Process plug-in. Results: The results indicated a significant positive correlation between core self-evaluation and self-acceptance (r = 0.486), as well as a significant negative correlation between core self-evaluation and social anxiety (r = -0.559). Additionally, a significant negative correlation was observed between self-acceptance and social anxiety (r = -0.457). The direct effect of core self-evaluation on social anxiety was -0.584, while the indirect effect via self-acceptance was -0.157, resulting in a total effect size of -0.741 and a mediating effect size of 21.19%. Conclusion: The findings indicate that self-acceptance partially mediates the relationship between core self-evaluation and social anxiety among male nursing students during their internship.
Keywords: Male nursing students, Core self-evaluation, social anxiety, self-acceptance, Mediating role
Received: 19 Dec 2024; Accepted: 02 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fengxia, Wang, Yang, Ju, li, liu and wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wang Fengxia, Pingdingshan University, Pingdingshan, China
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