Social Interest and Social Well-being Across Adolescence, Young Adulthood, and Middle Adulthood Stages in the Indian Context

Abstract

The authors examined the relationship between social interest and social well-being across adolescence, young adulthood, and middle adulthood stages. The study sought to investigate about how social interest could be an important predictor of social well-being across multiple life span development stages. A total of 360 participants, males and females, with age ranging from 15 to 65 years (M = 33.50, SD = 11.99), belonging to two ecological settings, i.e., rural (Gorakhpur region, eastern Uttar Pradesh, India) and urban (National Capital Region of Delhi, India), completed the Social Interest Index Scale (Greever et al., Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 41, 454–458, 1973) and Social Well-being Scale (Keyes, Social Psychology Quarterly, 61, 121–137, 1998) and responded to demographic questions. The results indicate how individuals differ in visualizing social interest and social well-being across adolescence, young adulthood, and middle adulthood stages. The regression findings show that the factors of social interest emerged less frequently as the predictors of social well-being. The study has obvious limitations due to correlational nature. The results, however, suggest that there is a need to inculcate and promote social interest across multiple life span development stages for the enhanced social well-being/wellness of society. The future research work may consider a large sample from different cultural contexts in order to have clarity about the relationship between variables undertaken in the study.