Title of the Topic

Title of the topic:

A study on self-esteem and subjective well-being among college students.

Introduction:

College students represent the lifespan stage referred to as young adulthood. Young adulthood is defined as the span between 20 to 40 years of age. This is a stage where the individual is maturing in several ways, and this phase is thought to hold great potential for intellectual, emotional and even physical development. (Papalia and Olds, 1992)1. This is a phase where the individual starts exploring varied “adult” roles and is becoming aware of responsibilities that accompany being “an adult”. It is a phase where the self-concept and self-identity are further consolidated and shaped.

Self-esteem is generally a stable characteristic of adults, and is developed through an individual's life experiences. As an individual’s identity gets better established, this gives him/her a sense of inner continuity, also increases their self esteem, resulting in fewer feelings of inadequacy(Hurlock, 1981)2. Self acceptance leads to behavior that makes others like and accept the person, translating to better or more positive appraisal of oneself, that is, positive self-esteem.

Self-esteem is only one component of the self-concept. It is a positive or negative orientation toward oneself; an overall evaluation of one's worth or value. (Rosenberg, 1989)3. It is defined as the self-evaluation made by each individual; one’s attitude toward oneself along a positive-negative dimension. A person with high self-esteem perceives himself / herself as better, more capable, and of greater worth than does someone with low self-esteem. Self evaluation is based on the opinions of others and in part how we perceive specific experiences (Baron and Byrne, 1997)4.

Self-esteem in turn has an impact on the individual’s sense of well-being, which is his/her subjective evaluation of well-being. Subjective well-being is a composite measure of physical mental and social well- being as prescribed by the individual involving happiness, satisfaction and gratification in different life concerns, such as health marriage, family, work, financial situation self esteem and belongingness (Sell and Nagpal, 1985)5.

Brief Resume of the Intended Work:

Need for the study:

Subjective wellbeing is an overall assessment of feelings and attitudes about one’s life at a particular point of time ranging from negative to positive and involves subjective evaluation of one’s current status in the society. This subject evaluation is often reflected in an individual’s self-esteem (Diener, 2003)6.

Not many research studies have been done in the Indian context which relates self-esteem with the subjective well-being of young adults, specifically college students. This study aims to understand the self-esteem of college students and its relation to their subjective well-being.

Review of literature:

Subjective well-being, that is people’s emotional and cognitive evaluations of their lives, includes what lay people call happiness, peace, fulfillment, and life satisfaction. Personality dispositions such as extraversion, neuroticism, and self-esteem can markedly influence levels of subjective well-being (Diener, 2003)6. How one thinks about his or her life also plays a part in determining one’s subjective well-being. Albuquerque7 cites further research that found that self-esteem was one of the several personality traits that correlated significantly with subjective well-being (the others being optimism and internal locus of control).

Wei et al (2011)8 note that subjective well-being is only partly a function of environmental circumstances. There may be a personality characteristic or a resilient disposition toward experiencing high levels of well-being even in unfavorable circumstances. Their study among college students and community adults confirmed that adult attachment is a contributing factor to resilient disposition.

Student’s well-being is a concept that is multi-dimensional. A study was done by Negovan (2010)9to understand dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being. The authors note that research in this area suggests many separate but related dimensions of psychosocial well-being. In their current study, they found that psychosocial well-being had four dimensions: subjective well-being related to every day’s events, subjective well-being related to faculty events, psychological well-being and social well-being. The sample for the validation study consisted of 449 university students at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Bucharest, Romania.

A study was done by Schimmack, and Diener (2003)10 on the predictive validity of explicit and implicit self-esteem for subjective well-being, with 141 students at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. They found that explicit self-esteem predicted subjective wellbeing (SWB).

Objectives of the study:-

·  To assess the level of self-esteem among college students.

·  To assess the level of subjective well-being among college students

·  To understand the relationship of self-esteem and subjective well-being among college students.

·  To see the relationship of self-esteem and subjective well-being of college students with socio- demographic variables

Material & methods:-

Source of data:

Data will be collected from undergraduate (Degree) students studying in non-professional degree colleges in Bangalore city.

Tools for data collection:

The following tools will be utilized to collect data for the study:

·  Socio-demographic data sheet which will be constructed for the study

·  Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1989)3 - consists of a list of 10 statements dealing with general feelings about oneself. It is commonly scored on a four-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly agrees to strongly disagree. Higher scores indicate better self-esteem.

·  Subjective Well-Being Inventory (SUBI) (Sell and Nagpal, 1985)5 - these tool measures feelings of wellbeing experienced by an individual in day-to-day life concerns. It consists of 40 items, measuring 11 factorial dimensions: general wellbeing positive and negative effect, expectation-achievement congruence, confidence in coping, transcendence, family group support, social support, primary group unconcern, inadequate mental mastery, perceived ill- health, deficiency in social contact. Higher scores indicate more subjective well-being.

Method of collection of data:

Random sampling techniques will be used to select the sample. The size of the sample is a minimum of 100 students in all, to ensure that there is an equal representation of students of both sexes.

Inclusion:

·  Students in the age group of 19-25 years

·  Students doing non-professional degree courses

·  Students in co-educational colleges

·  Both male and female students

Exclusion:

·  Students who Psychology as a paper in their course.

·  Students who have a history of mental illness, and / or a family history of mental illness.

Ethical considerations

·  Institutional permission will be taken for data collection.

·  Informed consent will be taken from the students before administering the questionnaires.

·  Responses will be kept confidential and used for the purpose of this study only.

References

1.  Papalia DE, Olds SW. Human Development.5th Edition. New Delhi: McGraw-Hill, 1992.

2.  Hurlock, EB. Developmental Psychology - A life span approach. New Delhi: McGraw-Hill International Book Company, 1981.

3.  Rosenberg, M. Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Revised edition. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989.

4.  Baron RA, Byrne D. Social psychology. 8th edition Boston: Allyn& Bacon, 1997.

5.  Sell H and Nagpal R. Assessment of Subjective Well-Being – The Subjective Well-Being Inventory (SUBI). Regional Health Paper, SEARO 24. World Health Organization (WHO); Geneva, 1992. Accessed from http://whqlibdoc.who.int/searo/rhp/SEARO_RHP_24.pdf.

6.  Diener E, Oishi S, Lucas RE. Personality, culture, and subjective well-being: Emotional and Cognitive Evaluations of Life. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2003; 54:403–25. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145056. Accessed from

http://education.ucsb.edu/janeconoley/ed197/documents/DienerPersonalitycultureandsubjectivewell-being.pdf

7.  Albuquerque, B. Subjective Well-being. Accessed from http://www.positivepsychology.org.uk/pp-theory/happiness/106-subjective-well-being.html

8.  Wei M, Liao KY, Ku TY, Shaffer PA. Attachment, Self-Compassion, Empathy, and

Subjective Well-Being Among College Students and Community Adults. Journal of Personality February 2011; 79 (1), 191-221. Accessed from

https://webspace.utexas.edu/neffk/pubs/Attachment%20self%20compassion%20and%20empathy.pdf

9.  NegovanV. Dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement: Validation of a students’ Psychosocial Well Being Inventory. Europe’s Journal of Psychology 2010; 85-104. Accessed from http://www.ejop.org/images/05%202010/7.%20Research%20-%20Students%27%20well-being.pdf

10.  Schimmack, U, Diener, E. Predictive validity of explicit and implicit self-esteem for subjective well-being. Journal of Research in Personality 2003; 37:100–106. Accessed from http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3psyuli/PReprints/JRP_IESE_SWB.pdf

1