Investigation of Psychological Well-Being Emotional Awareness and Expression of Emotion of Turkish and English University Students with Respect to Country and Gender

Abstract

The aim of this study is Turkish and English university students' psychological well-being, emotional awareness and expression of emotions of how differ according to gender and to the country. The research is a descriptive study. The Turkish group of the research was 349 Turkish university students educated at Gazi University in 2010-2011. The English group was 251 English university students. 229 of these students were from University College of London, University of London or Middelesex University in 2010-2011; 19 of these students were participated in the online research which was addressed as www.mediko.gazi.edu.tr/survey . Toronto-Alexithymia 20 Scale (Bagby, Parker and Taylor, 1994; Bestepe, 1997), Psychological well-being Scale (Ryff,1989; Cenkseven, 2004), and Personal Information Form were used to collect data. Multi analysis of variance (MANOVA) and t test were used for analysis. The results of the research showed that psychological well-being, emotional awareness and expression of emotions of Turkish university students was lower than the English students. The results were evaluated in terms of literature and institutional prospect; the suggestions were made by considering the future research and practical implication for counseling services.