The Relation Between the Manifestations of Driver Behavior and Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being
Year: 2017
Type: preprint
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Background: The concept of driver behavior as a reflection of a life scenario taken by a child from her parents leaves much perspective for empirical research. Driver behavior is more likely to manifest itself in a stressful situation. There are five drivers described in the literature now: “be the best”, “make others happy”, “try”, “never”, and “hurry”. Meanwhile, the period of adolescence is the time of exceptional psychological turbulence and feeling “I am not OK”.
The objective of the present study is to learn the relationship between the manifestations of driver behavior and adolescents' psychological well-being. We also viewed the relation of the level of adolescents' self-actualization and the extent to which they tend to follow particular drivers as an indirect sign of the phenomenon under study.
Method: M. Cox's Driver Behavior Questionnaire, the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-being, (adapted by M. M. Lepeshynskiy), VIA-IS “Values in Action” by K. Peterson and M. Seligman, Personal Orientation Inventory by E. Shostrom (adapted by Alyoshina Yu. Ye.). A quasi-experimental plan for non-equivalent groups was chosen.
The sample included 60 subjects (30 females and 30 males), aged from 18 to 25, students of Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University.
The results of the empirical research were processed with the help of Kolmogorov‒Smirnov test for data distribution check, non-parametric ρ-Spearman criterion for the correlation detection, and U-Mann‒Whitney test for groups comparison.
Results: The youngsters characterized by the high level of manifestation of driver behavior for all the five drivers feel much psychologically better than those whose driver behavior is expressed less. There are significant differences between the subgroups of the subjects with the high and low levels of psychological well-being on all the five drivers. There are no meaningful correlations between the drivers “be strong”, “try”, “hurry”, and “be the best” and such virtues as “humor”, “spirituality”, “appreciation of beauty and excellence”, and “transcendence”. The youngsters with the high level of the driver “be strong” manifestation possess the high level of self-actualization as well.
Conclusions: The results give the idea of the existence of different types of psychological well-being. The one which is accompanied by the manifestation of the drivers seems to be a conditioned one.
Meanwhile, we hypothesize there is an unconditional psychological well-being, which is more or less independent of any external regulations and scenarios.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Author: Oxana Bayer
Institution: Oles Honchar Dnipro National University
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3185445600