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| Mental Health in relation to Organizational Climate and Optimistic-Pessimistic Attitude | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Paper Id :
16120 Submission Date :
2021-09-01 Acceptance Date :
2021-09-20 Publication Date :
2021-09-25
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| Abstract |
The aim of present study was to investigate the effect of organizational climate and optimistic-pessimistic attitude of mental health and its various dimensions. The sample comprised of 160 adolescents (males and females) studying in different inter colleges of Agra city. The units of the study were between the age range of 16 to 18 years. To assess the mental health of students, Mental Health Battery, constructed by Prof Arun Kumar Singh and Alpna Sen Gupta was used. To measure the perception of organization climate of school Socio Emotional School Climate Inventory (SESCI) constructed by Renuka Kumari Sinha and Rajni Bhargawa was used. The Optimistic-Pessimistic Attitude Scale constructed by D. S. Parasahar was used to assess the attitude of the participants. A 2x2 factor factorial design was used to examine the independent as well as interactional effect of organizational climate and optimistic-pessimistic attitude on mental health and its different dimensions. The obtained results revealed that organizational climate exerted significant influence on mental health and its five dimensions. The effect of optimistic-pessimistic attitude on mental health and its different dimensions was also significant except for intelligence dimension. The interaction effect of independent variables was significant only for one dimension of mental health.
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| Keywords | Mental Health, Organizational Climate, Optimistic-Pessimistic Attitude. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Introduction |
Health is an important internal resource which assures a good quality of life. From the very beginning health has been taken as whole and hale (Stone, 1979). Thus, it seems clear that emphasis on wholeness and personal and social factors in attaining and maintaining health has been a frequent view throughout the history. In 1946 the United Nation established World Health Organization (WHO). In the preamble of its constitution, it defined health…, as a state of compete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. This definition makes it clear that mental health is an integral part of health and mental health is more than the absence of mental illness.
According to the WHO 2001, mental health is a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own ability, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.
Mental health for each person is affected by individual factors and experiences, societal structures and resources, and cultural values. It is influenced by experiences in every day life, in families and schools, on streets, and at work (Lahtinen, Riikonen & Lahtinen, 1997; Lahtinen et al. 1999). The mental health of each individual also affects the life in each of these domains and thus influences the health of community or population. Mental health is important at each stage of life but it becomes more important at the age adolescence.
Adolescence is the developmental transition to adulthood that includes rapid change in the brain and body, often at different rates and is a time for healthy exploration of identity and also learning independence. It can be stressful and challenging phase for teens. Like in other countries of the world, there is growing concern in India about the mental health status of its youth. There is no doubt that healthy development during childhood and adolescence lay the foundation for good mental health and can prevent mental health problems. Developing the correct attitude or perspective towards life is very important in maintaining good mental health.
School is one of the most important formal agencies of education as well as socialization. They are much more than settings for producing specific learning outcomes. They play a major role in moulding the ideas, habits and attitudes of children to produce well balanced, physically strong, mentally alert, emotionally stable, culturally sound and socially efficient personality. A school complex has many ingredients which directly or indirectly affect school organizational climate. Organizational climate covers the perception of members of organization, its working, interrelations between members, formal and informal values and norms and associated behaviour that are related to administration.
School climate refers to and reflects the quality and character of school life. Freinerg (1999) describes it as “the heart and soul of the school…… that essence of school that leads a child, a teacher and an administrator to love the school and to look forward to being there each day”. According to Chohen, McCable, Michelli & Pickeral (2009) “A positive school climate helps people feel socially, emotionally and physically safe in school. It includes students, parents and school personnel’s norms, beliefs, relationship, teaching and learning practices as well as organizational and structural features of school.” According to National School Climate Council (2007) “A sustainable, positive school climate promotes students’ academic and social-emotional development. There can be various dimension of school climate. However, the factors that shape school climate can be grouped in to four main dimensions namely safety, teaching and learning (Academic climate), relationship (community climate) and the environment”.
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| Objective of study |
The present study was undertaken with following objectives-
1. To study the effect of organizational climate of school on overall mental health and its six dimensions namely Emotional Stability (ES), Overall Adjustment (OA), Autonomy (AU), Security-Insecurity (SI), Self-Concept (SC) and Intelligence (I).
2. To study the effect of Optimistic-pessimistic attitude on mental health and its six dimensions.
3. To study the interaction effect of organizational climate of school and Optimistic-pessimistic attitude on mental health and its six dimensions. |
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| Review of Literature |
Favorable school climate can lead to positive outcomes. Studies have revealed that it is associated to better academic performance, better mental health and less bullying (Thomas & Grimes, 2002). When students perceive their rules of class room, school discipline and overall safety as fair, there is less possibility that the students may have feeling of loneliness, anxiety and depression (Graphan et al., 2006; Ozer & Weinstein, 2004).
Attitude are enduring aspects of personality which exert directive and dynamic influence on the thoughts, emotions and the actions of the person towards individuals’ objects, situations etc. with which they are concerned. Our attitude towards aur life may be classified into two broad categories as optimistic and pessimistic. Optimistic attitude reflects a belief or hope that outcome of some specific endeavor or outcome in general will be positive favorable and desirable. It is a way of perceiving the world, situations and efforts that fosters hope and positive outcomes. The term is derived from Latin word “optimum” which means the best. “Being optimistic”, in the typical sense of the word, is defined as expecting the best possible outcome from any given situation (Merriam-Webster). It is referred to in psychology as dispositional optimism. It thus reflects a belief that future conditions will work out for the best (Oxford English dictionary). For this reason, it is observed as a trait that fosters resilience in the face of stress (Weiten, Lloyd, Margaret ,2005).
Contrary to this, pessimism is a negative mental attitude in which the person expects an undesirable outcome in any given situation. It focuses on negative aspects of life. In the ancient period, psychological pessimism was associated with Melancholy. Pessimism can be assumed to be parallel to depression. According to famous psychologist Aron Beck, Depression is due to unrealistic negative views about the world.
Optimism has been found to be positively correlated with good health and better subjective well-being. Lee et al (2019) assessed the overall optimism and longevity of cohorts of men from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging study and women from Nurses’ Health Study. The study found a positive correlation between higher levels of optimism and exceptional longevity which the study defined as “life span exceeding 85 years”. Aspinwall and Taylor (1990) also in their study observed that the freshmen who were high on optimism before entering the college, were feeling low distress as compared to their more pessimistic peers while controlling for the other personality factors. Over time, the more optimistic students were less stressed, less lonely, less depressed than their pessimistic counterparts. |
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| Sampling |
The sample of the present study included 160 students,
studying in different inter colleges of Agra city between the age range of 16
to 18 years. It included both males and females. |
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| Tools Used | 1. Socio-emotional school climate inventory (SESCI), constructed by Dr Renuka Kumar Sinha and Rajni Bhargav, was used to measure the social as well as emotional climate of school as perceived by the pupils. It has 70 items, out of which 35 items measure social climate (Part A) and 35 items measure emotional climate of school (Part B). The test-retest reliability of different areas ranges between .72 to .92. Whereas split half reliability was found to be .88. The test is quite valid. Content validity was determined while the construction of test and when it was validated with other six measures, the coefficient of validity was found to range between .19576 to .56476. The scoring of the test is very simple. Two response categories “Yes” or “No” are provided against each item. The correct answer of the item was given a score of one “1” or otherwise zero “0”. Thus, the maximum possible obtained score on Inventory would be 70 and the minimum would be zero. 2. Optimistic-pessimistic attitude scale: The life orientation i.e., optimistic-pessimistic attitude of the students was measured through the optimistic-pessimistic attitude scale, developed by D. S. Parashar. It is 40 items scale; 20 items measure optimism and the other 20 items measure pessimistic attitude. It’s test-retest reliability is 0.74 whereas, through K.R. formula, the reliability (r) was found to be 0.62. The test is valid and to determine the validity of the scale, the inventory was correlated with progressive and conservative attitude measuring scale and also with extrovert and introvert personality scale. The correlation between progressive and optimistic attitude was 0.72 and between conservative and pessimistic attitude was found to be 0.68. The scoring is simple. A score of one “1” is given to response ‘Agree” and zero “0” is given to “disagree” on statements related with optimistic attitude. On the contrary, score one “1” is given to “Disagree” and zero “0” to “Agree” on statements related with pessimistic attitude. 3. Mental Health Battery: (Arun Kumar Singh and Alpana Sen Gupta) was used to assess the mental health of students. It consists of 130 items related to six dimensions of mental health i.e., emotional stability, overall adjustment, autonomy, security insecurity self-concept and intelligence. Its test-retest reliability for different dimensions ranges between 0.767 to 0.876 whereas odd even whole length reliability ranges between 0.725 to 0.871. The range of concurrent validity for different dimensions was found to be between 0.673 to 0.823. Scoring: -Answers of those items in each part which tallied with answer given in the scoring key were given a score of one ”1” and if they did not tally, they were given zero “0”. The total mental health score as well as area wise scores can be computed with the help of scoring key provided in the manuals. |
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| Statistics Used in the Study | A 2x2 factorial design
was used in the present study as the aim of present study was to investigate
the independent as well as interactional effect of organizational climate and
Optimistic-pessimistic attitude on mental health and its various dimensions. |
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| Analysis | Table No-1 Summary
of analysis of variance (2x2), Overall Mental Health
Table No-2 Summary
of analysis of variance (2x2) Emotional Stability (ES)
Table No-3 Summary
of analysis of variance (2x2) Overall Adjustment (OA)
Table No-4 Summary
of analysis of variance (2x2) Autonomy (AU)
Table No-5 Summary
of analysis of variance (2x2) Security-Insecurity (SI)
Table No-6 Summary
of analysis of variance (2x2) Self-Concept (SC)
Table No-7 Summary
of analysis of variance (2x2) Intelligence (IG)
Table -8 Showing
Mean Score of Mental health and its dimensions with reference to Organizational
climate and Optimistic-Pessimistic attitude.
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| Result and Discussion |
Data was analysed using
ANOVA to obtain the independent as well as the interactional effect of
organisational climate of school and optimistic-pessimistic attitude on the
overall mental health and its six dimensions. The obtained results are given
below: |
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| Conclusion |
Adolescents who perceived the organizational climate of their school as favourable were better in their overall mental health and on dimensions of Emotional stability, Autonomy, Security-insecurity, Self-concept and Intelligence. But the effect of organizational climate of the school was not significant on Overall adjustment. The effect of life orientation i.e., optimistic-pessimistic attitude also exerted significant influence on Overall mental health, Emotional stability, Overall adjustments, Autonomy, Security-insecurity, Self-concept but not on Intelligence dimension. The interaction effect of organisation climate and optimistic-pessimistic attitude was significant only for Security-insecurity dimension. |
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