C.P. Khohkar
Head of Department of Psychology
G. K. University, Hardwar
Abstract
Assertiveness trait of an individual is straight forwardness in all dealings of life. The person has independence in nature, non convincing with other’s ideas, and dominance in behavior in general, whereas submissiveness keeps his ideas to himself only, not dare to open her mouth, fearful to meet and exchange views with others, accept subordination and act as others say, hesitant to oppose other’s views. It appears that young adults today are more likely prone to emotional-disorders that develop suicidal thoughts correspond closely to marital-status, in that it tends to occur more frequently among single persons and those who are divorced and separated than among married living together.
The Ex Post Facto study adopted 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 four-variate factorial design in natural setting to vary operations and to study interactions. A total sample of 240 subjects has been drawn from Hardwar and & its adjoining districts through purposive random sampling. Results of the study show that suicide ideation is significantly higher in adults having submissive trait of personality than assertive. People having single marital status (not-married, divorced, widowed & separated) are more prone to suicide ideation as compared to married ones.
Trait approaches have been developed to accommodate the various degrees to which people may possess a feature. All individuals can be scaled or assigned a value along a trait dimension. Some will have very little, others very much; they represent the extremes of the distribution. Most people would show moderate amounts of any trait. Everyone has certain personality traits that form their personality and make them unique. From birth, our personalities develop in response to our social and cultural environments. Our conception of right and wrong and how we view ourselves, and the world, are developed during this time, and have a tremendous bearing on the types of personality we will have as adults. Most of us end up with a combination of elements from all of the personality types discussed, but typically one element tends to predominate. This blending of personality characteristics is normal and dictates how we respond to the world. Personality does become problematic when decidedly normal traits like anger, guilt, shyness and suspiciousness, for example, become clinically diagnosable conditions called personality disorders. It indicates that assertiveness of an individual as a person is straight forward in all dealing of life, bold, having traits of leadership, likes to act as main role player, independent nature, non convincing with other’s ideas, dominant, whereas submissiveness keeps his ideas to himself only, not dare to open his mouth, fearful to meet and exchange views with others, accept subordination and act as others say, hesitant to oppose other’s views.
Marital Status is strongly correlated with suicide. Twice as many single people than married kill themselves, and childless women are more likely to commit suicide than those with children (Hoyer & Lund, 1993). Since women are more prone to depression than men and depression is often associated with suicide, then rates of suicide in women would be much higher than in men. Indeed three times more than men attempt suicide (NIMH, 2000; Lewinsohn et al., 1994). According to Kushner, 1995; Moscicri, 1995, men and boys are four times more likely than women and girls to complete suicide.
As many as 3% of the population contemplates suicide at sometime in their lives, and between 5 and 16% report having had suicidal thoughts at sometime (Crosby, Cheltenham & sacks, 1999; Statham etal.,1998). There are large differences between men and women, age groups and cultural groups in rates of suicide. Although it is tempting to speculate that marriage contributes to the prevention probably more correct to say that emotional-disturbances themselves may have lead to the marital-breakups. It is also possible that young persons who were emotionally disturbed in the first place did not marry and thus the rate of suicide increases in them. Perhaps the most striking shift is the decrease, over the past 60 yrs, in suicide rates among men over the age of 60 years. ( Murphy, Lindesay, & Grundy, 1986)
Methodology and Design
Present study is an ‘Ex Post Facto’ attempting to estimate the role of independent variable in retrospect. The Ex Post Facto study adopted 2 x 2 x 2 x x2 four-variate factorial design in natural setting to vary operations and to study interactions.
Independent Measure
1. Personality trait: Assertiveness vs. submissiveness as
2. Over to marriageable age: two groups 30 to 35 and 45 to 50.
3. Sex: Male and Female both
4. Marital status: Married vs. Unmarried
Dependent Measure
1.The dependent measures of the study are Suicide Ideation.
Sample
A total sample of 240 subjects has been drawn from Hardwar and & its adjoining districts as per the requirement of paradigm through purposive random sampling. Each group constructed on the basis of assertive v/s submissive consists of 120 adults. Age range of the adults was 30-50 years in two different groups with a span of 5 years i.e. (30+5) years & (45+5) years. Sample is further categorized gender wise male and female on marital-status married and single (single means not widowed divorced and separated) subjects. Only literate subjects from nuclear & joint families belonging to rural and urban areas working in private and public sectors were taken from Hardwar District, India.
Tools
The following two psychological tests were used for collecting information from the universe
1. The Scale For Suicide Ideation: constructed by Beck, A. T., Kovacs, M. & Weissman A. (1979) Test have inter rater reliability coefficient 0.83.
2. Dimensional Personality Inventory: constructed by Dr. Mahesh Bhargava, (1994) consists of 60 statements Split half reliability of the test for activity dimension for boys and girls and psychaitric paients was 0.56, 0.57 and 0.39 respatively. Coefficient of correlation ‘r’ for criterion related validity for activity and pasivity dimention of the test was 0.74). High score indicates the assertiveness trait of personality, whereas low score is near to submissiveness dimension.
-- THE ANOVA SUMMARY (P < .05)
Table-1
-- RESEARCH PARADIGM: Showing the total score of subject in each cell
Table-3
Details of Results
Suicide ideation is significantly higher in adults of submissive personality in comparison to those having assertive trait of personality.
People single in marital status (Excluded from sample -divorced, widowed & separated) are more prone to suicide ideation as compared to married ones.
Bivarite interaction assertive vs. submissive with marital status is significant on suicide ideation
The further breakup of interaction results are given as below:
Table-2
Interpretation of significant results of 2 X 2 bivariate interactions:
• II: Unmarried people having submissive trait of personality are more prone to suicidal ideation than single (unmarried people) with assertive trait of personality.
• IV: Unmarried people having submissive trait of personality are more prone to suicidal wishes than married people having submissive trait of personality.
It appears that young adults today are more likely prone to emotional-disorders that develop suicidal thoughts correspond closely to marital-status, in that it tends to occur more frequently among single persons and those who are divorced and separated than among married living together. Although it is tempting to speculate that marriage contributes to the prevention probably more correct to say that emotional-disturbances themselves may have lead to the marital-breakups. It is also possible that young persons who were emotionally disturbed in late adolescent and young adult phase did not marry and he rae of suicide was found in creaming in them.
There are large differences between men and women, age groups and cultural groups in rates of suicide. Marital Status is strongly correlated with suicide. Twice as many as single people than married kill themselves, and childless women are more likely to commit suicide than those with children. Researchers found that married individuals are less lonely than their non-married counterparts (unmarried) (Perlman & Peplau, 1998). The present investigation indicates that unmarried people of age group (30-50) years have more anxiety, depression, confusion, unable to concentrate, and less sociable or introvert. Horwitz, Allan V., White, Helene Raskin, Howell-White Sandra (1996) found that Despite the assumption that marriage enhances psychological well-being, little evidence exists that the social role of marriage, rather than the characteristics of individuals who get married, accounts for the benefits of marriage.
A field study, conducted in Calcutta reported some important correlates of common mental disorders in women. Age, marital status, economic status, occupation, education and family roles comprise these correlates. Neuroses increase with age for both sexes but women have a much higher rate. Single women were found to have less illness compared to single men. The ratio was equal for married couples but widowed females had higher rates of illness. The influence of economic status was not very clear.
-- Graphical Presentation of Main Effect & Interaction
1. Mean values on Suicide ideation in relation to Assertive vs. Submissive (Personality trait), Age, Sex, and Marital-status in adults.
Graph-1
2. Interaction between Personality trait and Marital-status on suicide ideation in adults
Graph-2
Graph-3
Reference
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Statham, D. J., Health, A. C., Madden, P., Bucholz, K., Beirut, L., Dinwiddie, S. H., Slutskee, W. S., Dunne, M. P., & Martin, N. G. (1998). Suicidal behavior: An epidemiological study. Psychological Medicine, 28, 839-855.
Hoyer, G. & Lund, E. (1993). Suicide among women related to number of children in marriage. Archives of General Psychiatry, 50, 134-137.
NIMH (2000). The Mental health of Urban America: the urban programs of the National Institute of Mental Health. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing office
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Kushner, H. I. (1995). Women and Suicidal behavior: Epidemiology, gender and lethality in historical perspective. In S. S. Canetto & D. Lester (Eds.), Women & Suicidal Behavior: New York: Springer.
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Murphy, E. Lindesay, J. & Grundy, E. (1986). 60 years of suicide in England & Wales: A cohort study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 43, 969-976.
Beck A. T., Kovacs M., & Weissman A. (1979). Assessment of suicidal intention: The scale of suicide ideation. J Consult Clin Psychology, 47, 343-352.
Bhargava, M. (1994). Dimensional Personality Inventory (DPI), Nandini Enterprises, Agra, India.
Perlman, D., & Peplau, L. A. (1998). Loneliness. In H. S. Friedman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of mental health (vol.2), San Diego: Academic Press
Horwitz, A. V., White, H. R., & Howell-White S. (1996). Becoming Married and Mental Health: A Longitudinal Study of a Cohort of Young Adults. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58(4), 895-907.