To Study Depression in Relation to Self-criticism and Academic Achievement among Adolescents

Depression is an emotional state marked by great sadness and apprehension, feeling of worthlessness and guilt, withdrawal from others, loss of sleep, appetite, and sexual desires, loss of interest and pleasure in usual activities (Kring, Johnson, Davison,&Neale, 2010). The adolescence period is the best time to develop positive emotions and training skills, because adolescents are seeking to find their identity and their future personality at this period. Depression in adolescents has become a subject of considerable research over the last few decades. The present study aims to investigate the depression in relation to self-criticism and academic achievement among the students. The sample consists of 150 students (75 male, 75 female) were selected from the Senior Secondary Schools for boys and girls, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. The age of students ranged between 17 -19 years. In the study the tools used for assessment were Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-2nd, 1996), Self-Criticism scale developed by Gilbert et al. (2004). Self-criticism has three dimensions; inadequate self, hated self, and reassured self. Academic Achievement of the students was measured on the basis of the marks or grades obtained in the examinations consisting of first, second and third terminal examinations. Regression analysis was applied in order to analyze the data. The results of regression analyses revealed that, inadequate self was the best predictor of depression.