158. Impact mechanism of social perception ability enhancement on college students' mental health literacy

Abstract Background In recent years, college students have been confronted with multiple pressures such as academic competition, interpersonal adaptation and career planning. Psychological problems caused by insufficient mental health literacy have become a difficult point affecting the quality of talent cultivation in colleges and universities. The role of social perception ability, as a psychological ability in interpersonal interaction, in enhancing mental health literacy has been initially confirmed, but there is a lack of empirical verification from large samples and multiple dimensions. Therefore, this study aims to provide a scientific basis for mental health education in colleges and universities through systematic research. Methods The study adopted stratified sampling to select a total of 528 college students from three different types of universities, namely comprehensive, science and engineering, and liberal arts, as the research subjects. Among them, there were 231 male students and 297 female students, covering academic grades from the first year to the fourth year. The research adopted standardized scales tested for reliability and validity to collect data from the Social Perception Ability Scale, the College Students' Mental Health Literacy Scale, the Emotion Regulation Ability Scale, and the Psychological Resilience Scale. Among them, the social perception ability scale includes emotion recognition, empathetic understanding, interpersonal insight, and the college students' mental health literacy scale is divided into knowledge awareness, problem identification, attitude towards seeking help, and adjustment skills. The study conducted descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis on the data through SPSS 26.0 software. A structural equation model was constructed through AMOS 24.0 to test the mediating effect and moderating effect. All statistical analyses passed the two-sided test. Results The research results show that college students' social perception ability is significantly positively correlated with the overall score of mental health literacy and the scores of each dimension (all p values are less than 0.001). The results of multiple regression analysis indicated that social perception ability could positively predict the overall level of mental health literacy (β = 0.58, p<.001), with an explanatory variance as high as 38.91%. Among them, emotion recognition (β = 0.24, p<.001), empathetic understanding (β = 0.19, p<.001), and interpersonal insight (β = 0.16, p<.001) all have significant positive predictive effects on mental health literacy. The results of the mediating effect test indicated that emotional regulation ability played a partial mediating role between social perception ability and mental health literacy, with an indirect effect value of 0.21, accounting for 36.24% of the total effect. The results of the moderating effect analysis revealed that psychological resilience could significantly moderate the impact of social perception ability on mental health literacy (β = 0.14, p<.01). In addition, the predictive effect of the high psychological resilience group (M = 4.11 ± 0.46) was significantly higher than that of the low psychological resilience group (M = 3.26 ± 0.52). Discussion The research results show that social perception ability has a significant positive predictive effect on the mental health literacy of college students. Emotional regulation ability and psychological resilience can strengthen this positive influence. This conclusion provides a precise intervention direction for mental health education in colleges and universities. Funding No. 24A0013.