Assessing ego functions of young professionals engaged in performing and visual arts and control: A comparative study

Pages: 1178-1183
Anindita Majumdar and Jayanti Basu (Department of Applied Psychology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata )

The nature of ego functions of the professionals in Kolkata, who have chosen performing (music, dance, & acting) and visual (painting & photography) art as their career, in comparison to a control group of non-artist professionals has been investigated in the present manuscript with the purpose of understanding the effect of such statistical functions on creative personalities. The sample constituted of 150 artist professionals and 150 non-artist professionals from Kolkata within age range of 20 to 40 years, including respondents of both the genders. The control group was matched with the study group in terms of relevant demographic variables. The tool used to obtain the findings was Ego Function Assessment (EFA) Scale, as modified by Bellak (1989). The EFA scale assessed twelve separate ego functions viz., Reality Testing, Judgment, Sense of Reality, Drive Control, Object Relation, Thought Process, Adaptive Regression, Defense Functioning, Stimulus Barrier Autonomous Functioning, Synthetic-Integrative Functioning and Mastery Competence. Descriptive and multivariate tests were used for statistical analysis of data. The data analysis revealed significant differences between the two groups, and between the genders in terms of ego functions. The creative’s had poorer ego functions on many respects, but had higher adaptive regression. However, their differing perspective of emotions (as indicated by higher adaptive regression) may account for their specialty. Suggestions for mental health management of creative persons require awareness on the part of the mental health workers in this regard.