Social Beliefs Psychological Well-Being Of The Generation Z

Abstract

In the process of socialization, a person builds an image of the world, which determines his/her further interaction with the surrounding reality. In this research the social beliefs as components of the image of the world of children born at the beginning of the XXI century are studied. The purpose of the study was to establish the relationship of social beliefs with psychological well-being, as well as to compare the psychological well-being, depending on the level of presence of social beliefs. We analyse 4 types of social beliefs - belief in a jungle world, belief in a dangerous world and belief in a just world (belief in a justice towards oneself personally and belief in a justice of the world in general). The 69 of 10-11th grades school students from two regions of Russia – 35 from Tatarstan and 34 from Bashkortostan – participated in our research. The results of the study showed that there are significant differences in teenagers with different levels of social beliefs. These belief systems have been found to negatively correlate with the level of psychological well-being. In this case, the most significant role is played by belief in a jungle world, which affects virtually all parameters of psychological well-being.

Keywords: Image of the worldpsychological well-beingbelief in a just worldbelief in a jungle worldbelief in a dangerous world

Introduction

Problem Statement

While socializing a person constructs an image of the social world, which serves as a special integrated formation, as a cohesive, multi-level system of a person's ideas about the surrounding social reality, about himself/herself, his/her activities, about other people and the peculiarities of interaction with them. Even at the early stages of socialization, the image of the world is not only filled with social information, but also “acquires a certain sentiment, which in the future largely determines the general tonality of a person’s view of the world” (Andreeva, 2005, p. 232), and also, apparently, forms the basis of the social beliefs.

Research Questions

The research is focused on the following question:

What is the role of social beliefs in the psychological well-being of teenagers?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship of social beliefs and their role in the psychological well-being of teenagers born in the 21st century.

Research Methods

Findings

In order to answer the research question, we conducted a cluster analysis using k-means method to identify subgroups with high and low presence levels of each of the social beliefs studied.

At the beginning, we divided the sample into two subgroups according to the level of JWB: low scores for 25 respondents (M = 24,8; SD = 3,88) and high scores for 44 (M = 34,82; SD = 2,97).

Subsequently we divided the sample into two subgroups according to the level of DWB: low scores for 38 respondents (M = 33,67; SD = 3,08) and high scores for 31 respondents (M = 42,48; SD = 4,12).

While analysing belief in a just world, we took into consideration, that it includes two components - belief in a justice towards oneself personally (personal belief in a just world - BJWpers) and belief in a justice of the world in general (general belief in a just world - BJWgen) - therefore, the data for each of these scales of the questionnaire were analyzed separately. Using the k-means cluster analysis, we divided the sample into two subgroups according to the level of personal belief in a just world: low scores for 28 respondents (M = 15,71; SD = 3.45) and high scores for 41 (M = 25,24; SD = 2.95).

As an indirect confirmation of the fact that the BJWpers in our study demonstrates defence psychological mechanisms, we can assume that the majority of our respondents perceive the world as unfair. The cluster analysis allowed us to divide the sample into two subgroups according to the level of BJWgen presence: low scores of general belief in a just world among 51 respondents (M = 17,61; SD = 3,95) and high scores - in 18 respondents (M = 26,89; SD = 3,95).

The relationship of psychological well-being and social beliefs

The correlation analysis shows the social beliefs are generally negatively correlated with the PWB (Table 01 ). The exception is the positive relationship of BDW with the “autonomy” scale. We believe that teenagers, who perceive the world as chaotic and unpredictable, are expected to seek support in their own judgments and are focused on being independent. However, in general, this does not lead them to a high level of general well-being, but does not prevent it either, as evidenced by the lack of significant correlation with an integrated index of PWB.

PWB was assessed depending on the level of presence of each type of beliefs. The most pronounced differences are observed only in relation to belief in a jungle world. Table 02 presents data demonstrating that on all scales, with the exception of “Control of the environment”, higher scores are observed for those participants who perceive the world as less competitive. Thus, BJW is associated with the greater isolation and frustration in relationships with others, with a greater dependence on their opinions, a lesser sense of self-realization and meaningfulness of life with a more pronounced dissatisfaction with themselves. At the same time, BJW does not give advantages as the feeling of being able to control the environment and use the opportunities to achieve one’s goals. All of this creates quite contradictory emotional experiences that in general do not contribute to psychological well-being.

In regard to other types of beliefs, there is no such differentiation observed in terms of level of PWB. As a trend, it can be noted that teenagers who believe in a dangerous world experience less life meaningfulness - their indexes on the “life goals” scale are significantly lower (p = ,009) than among those who have a low DWB (M = 51,74; SD = 8,19 and M = 56,5; SD = 7,87, respectively). Such results seem logical as it is difficult to choose a certain goal and move towards it, if the world is unpredictable and chaotic. Results also show that high level of BJWpers have a significantly lower level of self-acceptance compared to those who are less susceptible to this type of belief (on the “Self-Acceptance” scale M = 49,59; SD = 5,77 and M = 54,79; SD = 8,22; p = ,013, respectively). It is possible that in adolescence there are still few opportunities to control one’s own life, to achieve success and well-being, therefore personal belief in a just world for oneself serves as a psychological defence. In other words the current state of affairs is perceived as fair and leading to dissatisfaction with oneself, but it allows one to keep hope of that everything can be corrected and the world will repay with success and recognition in the future.

Therefore, the obtained results suggest that social beliefs can be considered as risk factors for PWB. At the same time, the most significant role can be played by belief in a jungle world, which affects virtually all parameters of psychological well-being. While the role of belief in a dangerous world and in a just world is limited to only a few scales.

Conclusion

The conducted analysis allowed us to see certain patterns in teenagers’ beliefs about the world and demonstrated the negative role of such views on PWB of younger generation.

In addition, at this stage, the question of the intercorrelation of the studied variables remains open. In the future, we plan to conduct confirmatory factor analysis, that will allow to clarify the conclusions about the role of social beliefs PWB.

Acknowledgments

The study was supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project 18-013-01206 “Sociocultural and gender factors of psychological well-being of the 21st century generation”.

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