A Study of Mental Health, Positive Affect and Self-Concept among Adolescents with High and Low Aggression

Positive Mental Health and its advocacy has gained an immense importance in today's world. Enhancing life skills and positive mental health at childhood and adolescence is the need of the hour. Immense exposure to terrorism and violence via media has, of late, propagated amongst the youngsters a style that is more aggressive than assertive. Positive self-concept ensures a well-adjusted adult in society. The present study aims to investigate mental health, positive affect and self-concept among adolescents high and low on aggression. 100 adolescent males in the age-range of 15-17 years were, randomly picked up from Chandigarh Schools and studied along the dimensions of aggression and divided into high and low aggression groups. The two groups were then assessed on positive affect, mental health and self-concept. The instruments used were: The Aggression Questionnaire devised by Buss and Perry(1992), The PGI Well-Being Scale devised by Verma and Verma (1989), Satisfaction with Life Scale devised by Diener et al. (1985), The Self-Esteem Scale devised by Cheek and Buss(1981), The Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale devised by Schwarzer and Jerusalem(1986) and Optimism Scale devised by Scheier and Carver (1985), Perceived Happiness Scale devised by Fordyce (1988), Trust, devised by Wrightsman (1964) as a part of Revised Philosophies of Human Nature Scale (PHN). For statistical analysis, mean, S.D., t-ratios and inter correlations were computed for both the groups. Results showed that the adolescents high on aggression to be low on dimensions of mental health, positive affect and positive self-concept and those low on aggression to be high on dimensions of mental health, positive affect and positive self-concept. The study has clear implications in highlighting the need for training the young ones to be positive and assertive and not aggressive. Optimism helps the adolescents in optimizing Emotional Quotient in their personal and academic lives.