SARICAOĞLU, ARSLAN / An Investigation into Psychological Well-being Levels of Higher Education Students with Respect...
2099
to experience prolonged negative feelings and
develop various behavioural pathologies. They have
difficulty in establishing and maintaining relations
with others. They experience stress for extended
periods of time (Bruck & Allen, 2003). Emotionally
stable individuals, on the other hand, are quiet
and they are content with themselves (Friedman
& Schustack, 1999); they are agreeable and highly
self-confident. In addition, they tend to experience
positive emotions (McCrae & John, 1992).
Agreeable people are friendly, cooperative, reliable
and warm. They are individuals who are humble,
supportive, flexible, and they establish emotional
bonds with others (McCrae & John, 1992). Highly
agreeable people are defined as reliable, easy-going,
frank, altruistic and modest individuals (Judge
et al., 2002). Responsibility as a personality trait
signifies a personality dimension that involves
such properties as obedience, orderliness, self-
discipline and being achievement-oriented.
People with a strong sense of responsibility are
disciplined and careful, and they possess a strong
sense of achievement, while those with a weak
sense of responsibility are considered to be careless,
messy and lazy people (Costa & McCrae, 1992).
We think that this dimension is linked with such
properties as having powerful imagination, being
knowledgeable, having curiosity for learning; being
original, straightforward, quick-witted and having
the sensitivity of an artist (Barrick & Mount, 1991).
The individuals who have the quality of openness
to experience are considered to be imaginative,
adventurous, original, creative, curious, while it
is thought that those individuals who are slightly
open to experience resist change, and they are
closed and conservative people.
Individuals experience such feelings as grief, worry,
burnout, and failure in certain periods of their lives.
In order for them to be able to cope with negative
emotions, it is essential that they feel relaxed and
most importantly get rid of such negative feelings
without giving harm to themselves. To help
individuals get rid of these feelings and make their
life worthier of living and compassionate, their self-
compassion should be developed. It is sympathy
that forms the content of self-compassion. This is
because compassion involves being sensitive to
others’ suffering, being aware of others’ grief, not
disregarding or avoiding these sufferings and grief,
being affectionate towards others, the desire to
alleviate others’ sufferings that are apparent and
understanding people who fail or do wrong without
judging them (Deniz, Kesici, & Sümer, 2008). Self-
compassion is defined as one’s behaving sensitively
and in an understanding way rather than criticizing
oneself in the case of suffering and failure, seeing
negative experiences as a part of human life and
looking for logical solutions instead of emphasizing
negative emotions and thoughts (Neff, 2003a as
cited in Deniz & Sümer, 2010). When we encounter
a situation that causes grief or negative feelings,
three dimensions of self-compassion, emerge.
a) Kindness: involves a person’s being understanding
towards himself/herself rather than being critical.
People who have kindness, don’t make harsh
judgment and self-criticism towards himself/
herself (Neff, 2003a).
b) Common humanity: The individual’s viewing his/
her experiences as shared experiences of all people.
c) Mindfulness: Balancing negative feelings by
avoiding extreme identification (Dilmaç, Deniz, &
Deniz, 2010). Mindfulness is a balanced awareness
of one’s emotions, thoughts without avoiding or
trying to change them and without exaggeration or
prejudice (Akın, 2009).
When the literature is reviewed, it is seen that
there are only a handful of studies on psychological
well-being. The concept was introduced into the
literature in Turkish by Cenkseven (2004), who
investigated the predictors of psychological well-
being. Tanhan (2007) studied the effects of death
education on psychological well-being. Gürel
(2009) studied the impact of thinking styles on
psychological well-being.
Method
This study was carried out as a relational screening
model. The dependent variable in the study was
psychological well-being, and the independent
variables were personal characteristics and self-
compassion level. The population of the study was
composed of higher education students. The study
sample was selected through random sampling.
Totally 636 students took part in the study, 232
(%36.5) being in Selçuk University, 209 (%32.9)
of them being at Ahi Evran University, and 195
(%30.7) of them being at Cumhuriyet University.
405 of the participants were females (67.5%), while
231 of them (32.5%) were males.
Instruments
Psychological Well-Being Scale: the scale is
composed of 84 items. The Psychological Well-
being Scale is composed of 6 factors with 14
E D U C A T I O N A L S C I E N C E S : T H E O R Y & P R A C T I C E
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items used to measure the dimensions of positive
relations with others, autonomy, environmental
control, personal growth, purpose in life and self-
acceptance. The participants were asked to respond
to seven-point likert scale items with the labels “I
strongly disagree” and “I strongly agree”. After the
reversely scored items were coded, the scores of
14 items for each subscale were summed. Higher
scores for a particular subscale mean that the value
of that subscale is high. The scale was adapted into
Turkish by Cenkseven (2004). The total internal
reliability coefficient of the psychological well-being
scale was found to be .93. It was found that the test-
retest reliability coefficient for the total scores was
.84. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of the
Psychological Well-being Scale was found to be .88.
Adjective Based Personality Scale: This tool is
a scale developed by Bacanlı, İlhan, and Arslan
(2009). The scale is composed of 40 adjective pairs
that are compatible with the concept of personality
suggested by the Five-Factor Personality Theory.
It is designed in the form of seven-point Likert
items and is composed of 5 dimensions; that is,
neuroticism, extroversion, openness to experience,
agreeableness, and responsibility. Higher scores in
a subscale mean that the personal characteristic
in that subscale is dominant. It is seen that the
internal reliability coefficients of the dimensions
of Adjective Based Personality Scale (ABPT) range
between .73 and .89. Based on the results of results
of the factor analysis carried out to test the validity
of the ABPT, 40 out of 50 pairs of adjectives were
identified, and the results revealed that the five
dimensions explained 52.6% of the variance in the
ABPT (Bacanlı et al., 2009).
Self-Compassion Scale The Self-compassion Scale,
developed by Neff (2003b), was validated and
adapted into Turkish by Deniz et al. (2008). In the
original scale, which was prepared to measure the
properties of self-compassion, the respondents are
asked to rate how often they acted about a given
situation by using five-point Likert scale with
labels ranging from “Almost never=1” to “Almost
always=5. Higher scores in the scale indicate
higher levels of self-compassion. The Cronbach
Alpha reliability coefficient calculated in line with-
analysis of the scale was found to be .89. In addition,
internal reliability coefficient on the scale was
found to be .89, and test retest reliability coefficient
was calculated to be .83 (Deniz et al., 2008).
Data Analysis
The data collected through the scales were
analyzed using SPSS 17.0. To analyze the data,
Pearson conduct moments coefficient and stepwise
regression analysis were used.
Results
It was found that each subscale of psychological
well-being was positively correlated with self-
compassion. Self-compassion and self-acceptance
are the most conspicuous subscales of psychological
well-being. It is seen that all subscales of
psychological well-being are significantly correlated
with all subscales of personality. It was found that
positive relations with others strongly correlated
with property of extroversion in the subscale of
environmental mastery and self-acceptance, the
property of openness to experience in the subscale
of autonomy and personal growth and the property
of responsibility in the subscale of purpose in life.
Regression analysis carried out to determine the
predictors of positive relations with others revealed
that personal characteristics and self-compassion
explained 34% of the variance. Extroversion, self-
compassion and neuroticism were found be the
predictors of the dimension of positive relations
with others.
In the results for the subscale of autonomy revealed
that self-compassion and openness to experience
were significant positive predictors, while
agreeableness was a negative predictor, and these
explained the 17% of the variance.
It was also found that in terms of the subscale
of environmental mastery, self-compassion,
responsibility, extroversion and neuroticism
as subscales were predictive variables and they
explained 49% of the variance in the subscale.
The analysis carried to test whether psychological
well-being predicts the subscale of personal
development revealed that openness to experience,
self-compassion and neuroticism were predictive
variables. Openness to experience and self-
compassion predict psychological well-being in
a positive way, while neuroticism predicts it in a
negative way. These variables explain 32% of the
total variance.
The regression analysis carried out to find out
the predictive power of purpose in life indicated
that self-compassion and personality traits
predicted 33% of the variance in the subscale. Self-
compassion, responsibility and neuroticism were