Effect of visual warmness of counseling room on primary school students' willingness to psychological help‐seeking: The role of intimacy and cognitive style

Abstract According to previous studies, few students who experienced psychiatric problems sought out professional help. Although counseling rooms are now frequently found in primary and secondary schools in China, there is still a need to find a solution to the issue of how to increase the utilization rate of counseling rooms. To better understand how the setting of the counseling room affects students' willingness to seek professional psychological help, this study looked at the components that influence that increase. In this study, 1173 primary school students were surveyed using visual warmth of counseling room picture materials, intimacy measurement questionnaires, and the embedded figures test to investigate the relationship between visual warmth of counseling room picture materials and students' willingness to seek psychological help, as well as the role of intimacy and cognitive style. The study found that the warmth of the school counseling room had a significant effect on students' willingness to seek professional psychological help and that students' feelings of closeness to the counseling room mediated this influence path. Also, cognitive style moderated the direct effect of the counseling room's visual warmth on willingness to seek help as well as the first half of the mediating effect of intimacy.