Psychological Well-Being of Rural Populations in relation to their Age and Socio-Economic Status
Rahul Tomer and Bhagat Singh
Citation: Tomer, R., & Singh, B. (2022). Psychological Well-Being of Rural Population in relation to their Age and Socio-Economic Status. European Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 6, 11, 1-9. https://www.nationalwellbeingservice.org/volumes/volume-6-2022/volume-6-article-11/
Copyright: © 2022. Rahul Tomer and Bhagat Singh. Published in European Journal of Applied Positive Psychology. Published by National Wellbeing Services Ltd. This article is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license. Full terms of license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Processing dates: Submitted 28 January 2022; Resubmitted 20 June 2022; Accepted 22 July 2022; Published 20 October 2022
Abstract
Background/Aims/Objectives: Psychological Well-Being (PWB) refers to the achievement of a person’s full psychological potential. It is a multidimensional concept and concerned with the feeling of goodness and effective functioning of an individual. The aim of present study was to find out the role of age and socio-economic status (SES) on psychological well-being of rural Indian population.
Methods/ Methodology: 3×3 factorial design was used in the study. Stratified random sampling technique was used to equalize/neutralize the effect of extraneous variables. Total 810 participants from rural areas near national capital region were selected for the study. Psychological Well-Being scale standardized by Sisodia and Choudhary was used to measure psychological well-being (PWB). Socio-Economic Status (SES) was assessed using Pareek’s Socio-Economic Status (revised) scale.
Results: The value of F-ratio of PWB for three level of SES was found significant (p = 0.007), while value of F-ratio of PWB for age and interaction of age and SES was found non-significant. The mean score of middle SES was significantly different (p = 0.005) than that of upper SES.
Discussions: Results showed that participants with middle SES have significantly higher PWB than the participants with upper SES. Means SES emerge as a significant variable for PWB of rural participants. Age, independently and jointly with SES did not produce a significant variance in PWB of rural participants.
Conclusions: In can be concluded that middle SES participants in rural areas have higher PWB then other participants. So researchers should keep in the mind the role to SES while studying PWB especially among rural population. Key messages are that PWB gives us insight about the way a person lives one’s life. Though it is assumed that high socio-economic status is an indicator of high psychological well-being, this is not true about rural Indian population.
Keywords: Age, Psychological Well-Being, Rural Population, Socio-Economic Status
Biographies
Rahul Tomer, M.Phil is with Department of Psychology, Meerut College, Meerut (Uttar Pradesh) India
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0557-2633
Bhagat Singh is with Department of Psychology, Meerut College, Meerut (Uttar Pradesh) India
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4381-8681