Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing

Pages: 200-205
Chava Nirmala (Department of Psychology, St. Anns College of Education, Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh)
M.V.R. Raju (Department of Psychology, Andhra University, Vishakapatnam, Andhra Pradesh)

Stress is universal human experience. Stress and strain are experienced by adolescents, especially students. The study is an attempt to find out the academic stress and anxiety among the students in twin cities of Andhra Pradesh. The total sample for the present study was 743 (male=373 and female=370). The Student Academic Stress Scale (1991) developed by Rajendran. and Kaliappan was used to gather the data. A demographic questionnaire developed by the researcher was also used. A quantitative survey method was employed using statistical procedures such as t-test and f-test. The findings of the study points out that there were significant influence and difference between the demographical variables like gender, type of school, medium, type of syllabus with Academic Stress. Based on the findings of the study a set of recommendations were formulated.

Pages: 211-214
Ameen Abdulla and Baby Shari (Department of Psychology, University of Calicut, Calicut)

Terrorism is a word that has long been associated with heinous and ruthless acts. The psychological causes of terrorism have been the topic of interest to researchers since the 1970's when they began trying to create psychological profiles of terrorists. Their task has been very strong and enduring battle, since most terrorists are not available for psychological testing. People, who found, drive or lead a group forward intellectually or strategically are likely to be different than those that follow. Studies report that many experience mild stress reactions and many develop clinically significant psychological problems. The psychology of a terrorist consists of terrorist motivation. Many join terrorist outfits out of boredom and desire to have an action packed adventure. Motivation plays an important role in making terrorists do various acts of ruthlessness. A psychopath cannot be a terrorist as they are unreliable, cannot be controlled and their actions are personal. Terrorists are fanatics as they are cool, logical planning individuals whose rewards are not merely financial but ideological and political. Suicide terrorists have a self destruction ideology which makes them highly dangerous. There are various psychological factors that are needed for conformity of a person to be a terrorist. According to Bandura (1990), there are four techniques that are used by terrorist outfits to separate themselves from the mainstream society. In most terrorist groups women are recruited in a highly sophisticated manner as women tend to more cool in tense situations. Lochte considered female terrorists to be stronger, dedicated and more ruthless in their work assigned to them. The paper theoretically will do a psychological analysis of terrorist behavior and how far psychological influences are being done to bring up a terrorist and also to utilize in their acts to the public.

Pages: 217-218
Roshan Lal Dewangan (PGBIMS, Raipur, Chhatisgarh)
Roy Prasanta K. (IOP Kolkata, West Bangal)

Much success has not been achieved to treat Tourette Syndrome (TS) by conventional psychotherapies. Early success was observed using 'massive- practices' as explained by Yates (1958), but latter the method was not used widely or found variably unsuccessful. Azrin and Nunn (1973) reported higher rate of success for treating tics by 'habit rehearsal'. Taking account of theoretical model behind both techniques we made an attempt to treat a 17 years old boy suffering from this syndrome. Treatment result shows significant reduction of both motor and vocal tics within six weeks.

Pages: 222-229
Deepa P. Nagpal (P. L. Army Navy Stores, Visakhaptnam, Andhra Pradesh)

The present study aims at assessing the bereavement reactions and psychological well-being of the bereaving spouses as a function of gender and type of death (natural/unnatural). The study was conducted on 45 samples, 16 being from Andhra Pradesh and the remaining 29 from Goa. Tools for data collection included the 8 State Questionnaire, The General Health Questionnaire 28, and Personal Data Sheet. Findings of the study indicate that a significant positive correlation exists among the variables. Nature of death was found to significantly impact the bereavement reactions as well as psychological well-being. Dimensions of guilt, regression, arousal, anxiety and insomnia, and somatic symptoms showed to be consistently significant. Further, adjustment to widowhood does change as a function of nature of death, with those in the unnatural death group showing greater mal-adjustment than the natural death group. Implications of the research highlight the need to provide immediate as well as sustained therapeutic interventions to the bereaving spouses.

Pages: 239-241
Raminder Sidhu (SBBSIET, Jalandhar, Punjab )
Gurpreet Singh (Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar)

The present study was designed to examine the prevalence of depression and loneliness among adolescence. This study would also aim to find out whether gender differences exist in depression and loneliness. The sample comprised of 230 females 230 males between the ages of 14 years. The convenience sample consisted of adolescents who were attending secondary and senior secondary schools in Jalandhar. Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale and Beck Depression Inventory were used. Administration of test requires two sessions. In the first session, Beck Depression Scale was administered in the second session; revised UCLA Loneliness Scale was administered. Beck Depression Inventory and Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale were scored for two measures pertaining to depression and loneliness. The analysis of the data was done by making use of following statistical techniques Descriptive Statistics, t- test of significance, Two way analysis of variance.

Pages: 255-259
Sabira Khan (Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, U.P.)

AIDS is a chronic, life threatening condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The present study was carried out to evaluate the impact of counseling on depression and other behaviors manifesting psychological distress amongst HIV/AIDS patients. Beck's depression inventory (BDI) was administered to study depression. Stages of HIV infections were also used to facilitate clinical evaluation. Twenty persons with HIV/AIDS (16 men and 4 women) participated in the study. The subjects were administered BDI before counseling, and after counseling programme was completed, pre and post- counseling scores were compared. Certain behaviors like negative emotions, body postures, eye contact, hesitant and unnatural speech, and negative attitude towards others were observed systematically by the researcher and status of these behaviors at pre and post counseling stage was compared. It was found that at the post-counseling condition scores on depression were significantly lower. Marked improvement was also seen in behavioral symptoms of psychological distress.

Pages: 263-265
V. N. Yadav (Department of Psychology, Govt. College, Bhiwani)
Subodh Kumar (Rehabilitation Council of India, Delhi)
Satish Kumar (Department of Psychology, Vaish College, Bhiwani)
Kuldeep Nara (Department of Physical Edu. A. I. Jat H. M, College, Rohtak)
Davender, Pratibha and Archana (Govt. College, Bhiwani)

Values affect human behaviour and values are fundamental sources of meaningful way of reaction and response. Patterns of value orientation are the most crucial cultural determinant of mental and physical health. Cultures have cognitive, appreciative and moral value standards which are acquired by the actors living in these cultures. The current study was designed to examine value orientation of 25 urban and 25 rural parent couples. The age range of the sample was 40-50 years. The results were analyzed by using two way ANOVA and t-ratios. The results revealed significant mean differences between urban and rural parents with respect to different types of values. The study concluded that rural and urban parents differ in their value orientation.

Pages: 272-274
Rakhi Mehta (K. C. College, Mumbai)

The status of women in India in comparison to women worldwide is suppressed on account of the quality of socialization which is influenced by the patriarcichal society existing in India. This impacts the personality of Indian women which in turn effects their behaviour, attitudes and the quality of life which they lead which is filled with anxiety, ,introversion, subjugation, dependence etc to name a few. Therefore, the present research investigates the relationship between quality of socialization and its impact on the personality of Indian women in terms of the big five factors and its impact on life satisfaction and suggests positive psychology as a remedial measure for the betterment of life of Indian women.The study was conducted in Mumbai on women in the age group of 18 upwards, three questionnaires namely a self formulated socialization scale, NEO-FFI personality scale (Costa & Mc Crae, 1992) & life satisfaction scale (Ed Diener et al., 1985) were administered. Results found in the socialization scale women rated dependence, emphasis on outer appearance, obedience, self sacrifice in terms of one's time & career, protection of family honour, following religious rituals as the top features of their socialization process. In the personality scale women were found to be high on neuroticism, agreeableness, and moderate in extraversion, conscientiousness and low on openness. The rating for life satisfaction was also found to be low. A correlation study found a high and significant negative correlation between dependence and the openness trait & significant positive correlation between dependence and agreeableness trait, outer appearance & neuroticism trait and protection of family honour and neuroticism trait. As regarding life satisfaction it was found to have a significant negative correlation with outer appearance, protection of family honour and self sacrifice. Therefore there seems to be a definite impact of socialization on status of women and the need of the hour is application of positive health psychology for their upliftment.

Pages: 279-284
Mehmoodun Nisa and Naheed Nizami (Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, U.P.)

The current study was designed to predict the influence of Perceived Quality of Home Environment and Social Intelligence on Mental Health amongst senior secondary school adolescents. For this purpose data was collected from a representative sample of 248 adolescents, age range 16-18 years (both male 124 and female 124) studying in class XIth & XIIth taken from different schools of Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. All the participants completed the questionnaires namely- Home Environment Inventory developed by Misra (1983), Social Intelligence Scale by Chadha and Ganesan's (1986) and Mental Health Inventory developed by Jagdish and Srivastava (1985). After collection of data, in order to achieve the objectives of the study analysis was done by using Multiple Regression analysis step-wise and t-test. The results of the study revealed that home environment dimensions reward, conformity, protectiveness and nurturance emerged as significant predictors showed positive influence on positive self-evaluation, integration of personality and environmental competence dimensions of mental health. However, deprivation of privileges, punishment and social isolation (home environment dimensions) found to be the significant predictors showed negative influence on one of the dimension of mental health that is group oriented attitude. Also findings of multiple regression analysis revealed that social intelligence scale dimensions- sense of humors, patience and confidence emerged as significant predictors positively influence group oriented attitude among adolescents. Similarly sensitivity one of the dimensions of social intelligence emerged as significant predictor negatively influences some of the dimensions of mental health such as perception of reality, integration of personality and environmental competence. Further our study used t-test and the findings showed gender difference in terms of mental health that male group of adolescents have more better mental health as compared to their female counterparts.

Pages: 289-294
Gurmail Kaur (Department of Botany, Akal Degree College, Mastuana, Punjab)
Agyajit Singh (Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab)

Present communication deals with the use of Ekta's Emotional Intelligence Scale (EEIS) in order to compare the emotional intelligence (EI) between the professional and non-professional graduate students. EEIS measures five aspects of EI, viz., self-awareness, managing emotions, motivating oneself, empathy and handling relationships. Presently reported study reveals that no sex differences was observed on these five aspects of EI both in professional and non-professional students, however, differences were observed between such students in first three components of EI mentioned above while no differences were observed on last two components.

Pages: 298-299
Akancha Srivatsava (Purvanchal University, Jaunpur)

The study was conducted on 100 patients. The patients were selected with co-operation from medical practitioner attached with government hospitals and private nursing home situated in Jaunpur city and its neighboring areas. The patients were randomly selected were administered Thakur Death Anxiety Scale developed by Thakur and Thakur (1984).Results reveal that gastrointestinal patients are much more death anxiety ridden as compared to their normal counterparts.

Pages: 302-304
Sandeep Singh and Sunil Saini (Department of Psychology, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, Hisar, Haryana)

The present study was conducted on a sample of 800 students with age range of (15 to 21). The basic objective of the study was to know the correlates of HIV risk perception among youth population. The tests of HIV Risk Perception (Singh & Saini, 2010). HIV Knowledge (Carey et al., 1997), Impulsivity (Barratt,1994), and Sexual Sensation Seeking (Kalichman et al., 1994) were used in the study. It has been observed in the findings that HIV risk perception is significantly correlated with the variables of HIV Knowledge (-.32), Impulsivity (.18), and Sexual sensation seeking Behaviour (. 22).