Psychological Well-Being across Gender and Socio-Economic Status among Middle Adults

Abstract

Psychological well-being can be referred to as positive psychological functioning, which involves multidimensional constructs as well as the degree to which an individual perceives himself/herself as functioning well on areas like self acceptance, environmental mastery, personal growth and positive relationships. The current study aims at exploring psychological well-being across gender and socio-economic status among middle adults. The study consists of 266 middle adults (male=101, females=168) selected from 3 different socio-economic status groups (high=75, middle=114, low=77). The sample was drawn from urban population from Mangalore city. The age of the sample ranged between 40-55 yrs. Kuppuswamy’s socio-economic status scale (R-2012) and psychological well-being scale by Seema Mehrotra (2013) were administered. The data was analyzed using two-way ANOVA and post hoc test of least significant difference. The results revealed that women have significantly higher positive relations than men. Findings related to different socio-economic groups revealed that, adults belonging to high socio-economic status groups have significantly higher self-acceptance, mastery & competency, engagement & growth and overall psychological well-being compared to adults from low socio-economic status group, and significantly higher mastery & competency, overall psychological well-being than middle socio-economic status group. Middle socio-economic group adults have significantly higher self-acceptance, engagement & growth, and overall psychological well-being when compared to adults from low socio-economic status group.