Social Needs and Convictions as Predictors of Emotional and Psychological Well-being of College and University Students

Abstract

There have been very few investigations of emotional and psychological well-being associated with attitude to certain events, socio-political phenomena, and convictions of students at various stages of education. Therefore, studying emotional and psychological well-being and their predictors in college and university students is important for solving a number of practical problems, which psychological (counseling) services of an educational institution are faced with. The purpose of the present investigation is to carry out comparative analysis of social needs, convictions, satisfaction with various areas of reality, and predictors of emotional and psychological well-being in college and university students. 89 college students and 109 university students (66% females) took part in the investigation. They filled out questionnaires aimed at identification of emotional and psychological well-being and expressiveness of convictions, social needs, and satisfaction with them. Differences in identification of emotional and psychological well-being can be traced at various levels of professional education. Convictions, social needs, and satisfaction of needs determine emotional well-being in college and university students. Tightness of interconnections between psychological well-being and convictions, social needs, satisfaction of needs is significantly higher in university students. Convictions, social needs and satisfaction of needs explain 40% of variations of emotional well-being in college students and 80% of variations of emotional well-being in university students. It is shown that variations in emotional well-being of university students are conditioned by social and political convictions, as well as satisfaction of vital needs, while in college students they are conditioned by satisfaction with life, with oneself and content of education. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s1p528