The moderating role of previous help seeking experience and self-construals on the relationship between schema coping styles and attitude toward seeking psychological help

This study aimed to investigate the moderator role of counseling experiences and self-construals in the relationship between schema coping behaviors and attitudes of university students toward seeking help. The study involved a correlational design which was conducted with 773 university students, studying at formal undergraduate programs at different faculties of Anadolu University in the 2017-2018 academic year. In the study, Demographic Information Form, Attitudes Toward Seeking Psychological Help Scale-R, Schema Coping Questioannaire and Autonomous-Relational Self Scale were used to collect data. The data were analyzed using the PROCESS macro add-on by Hayes along with IBM SPSS Statistics 24. In the analysis of the data, Bootstrap methods and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation were used to calculate the correlation between the descriptive statistics and the continuous variables. The schema coping behaviors, self-structures, help seeking experience and the perceived nature of the counseling were found to be significant predictors of the attitudes of university students toward seeking help. In addition, autonomous and autonomous-relational self construals, having an experience of getting counseling and the perceived nature of previous counseling experience were found to have a regulatory role in the relationship between schema coping behaviors and the attitudes toward counseling, with different levels of significance.