The Relationship Between Self-Silencing and General Distress: Does Self-Esteem Play a Mediating Role?

The first purpose of this study is to test the validity and reliability of the Self-Silencing Scale in a Turkish sample. The second purpose of this study is to examine if there is any relationships between self-silencing and general distress, and to investigate if there is any mediating role of self-esteem on this possible relationship. A total of 427 university students within the range age of 18 to 31 years, with a mean age of 20.70 participated in this study. Participants were administered The Self-Silencing Scale, Two-Dimensional Self-Esteem Scale, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS), and a personal information form. CFA and regression-based mediation analyzes were carried out in the study. According to the CFA result, the 29-item structure of the scale was confirmed in the Turkish sample. As another result of the research, the findings revealed a negative significant relationship between self-silencing and self-esteem. On the other hand, a positive significant relationship was found between selfsilencing and depression, anxiety and stress. In addition, self-esteem mediated the relationship between self-silencing and depression, anxiety and stress. The indirect effects of self-silencing on general distress were also found to be significant. In other words, it has been observed that self-silencing has both direct effects on depression, anxiety and stress, and indirect effects through self-esteem.