Optimism, happiness, and self-esteem among university students

Pages: 300-304
Aehsan Ahmad Dar (Lecturer Government Degree College, Sumbal Sonawari Bandipora, Jammu and Kashmir )
Mohammad Amin Wani (Department of Psychology , Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu)

The present study intended to examine the level of optimism, happiness, and self esteem among University students. Further, the study strived to find the correlation between the variables. This study consisted sample of 60 University students with equal number of male and female participants, selected through purposive sampling technique. The life orientation test revised (LOT-R) by Scheier, Carver, and Bridges (1994); Oxford happiness questionnaire (OHQ) developed by Hills and Argyle (2002); and Self esteem scale constructed by Rosenberg (1965) were used to measure optimism, happiness, and self esteem respectively. For statistical analysis Mean, t- Test, and Pearson Correlation were applied by using SPSS 20.0 version. The results revealed that male and 20-24 years old students have high level of optimism, happiness, and self esteem than female and 25-28 years old students. Significant difference was found between the mean scores of male and female students in respect to their optimism, happiness, and self esteem, whereas insignificant difference was found between the mean scores of 20-24 years old and 25-28 years old students in respect to their optimism, happiness, and self esteem. Further results also revealed that there is positively significant correlation between optimism, happiness, and self esteem. Concurrently, gender is negatively significant correlated with optimism, happiness, and self esteem, whereas age was found negatively insignificant correlated with optimism, happiness, and self esteem respectively. On the basis of the findings of the present study we may conclude that gender has an influential impact on optimism, happiness, and self esteem, whereas age does not.