- Email: [email protected]
Correlates of psychological mindedness
Penon.
idid
Difl:
Vol.
19, No. 5, pp. 699-704.
Copyright
Pergamon
0
1995 Elsevier
Printed in Great Britain.
All rights reserved
019l-8869/95
CORRELATES
OF PSYCHOLOGICAL
Kimberlee Connecticut
College,
J. Trudeau*
270 Mohegan
Avenue,
$9.50+0.00
MINDEDNESS
and Rosandra New London,
1995
Science Ltd
Reich CT 06320-4196,
U.S.A.
(Received 23 Januur\ 1995) Summary-Levels of psychological mindedness, mental well-being, and self-consciousness of 89 students of a small liberal arts college were examined. Psychological mindedness, the awareness of one’s and others’ thoughts, feelings, and motives, is a recently studied phenomenon. The main hypothesis was that there is a positive linear correlation between psychological mindedness, as measured by the Psychological Mindedness Scale (Conte, Plutchik, Jung & Picard, Comprehensive Ps.vchiarr?; .?I, 426-43 1, 1990). and mental well-being, as measured by the Happy Scale (Ryff, Journal ofPersonalityund Sociul Psychology, 57, 1069-1081, 1989). This hypothesis was supported (P< 0.01). As expected, there was also a positive linear correlation between self-consciousness, as measured by the Private Self-Consciousness Scale (Fenigstein, Scheier & Buss, Journal of Consulring and CIinicul Psychology, 43, 522-527, 1975), and psychological mindedness (P < 0.01). A multiple regression indicated that as psychological mindedness increases, the level of mental well-being increases, and the level of self-consciousness decreases. In addition, psychology students were found to be significantly more psychologically minded than other social science students (P = 0.05) and more self-conscious than humanities students and science students (PC 0.01). Though psychological mindedness varied with major, it was found to transcend both class year and gender.
INTRODUCTION
As the majority of studies on mental health have focused on the mentally ill, there is consequently little literature on the relationship of psychological mindedness to mental well-being. One of the few examples of this literature is a study by Britzman and Henkin (1992). These researchers found that their patients’ psychological attentiveness to both self and others, contributed to their mental health. They focused on the characteristics that foster wellness: knowing one’s self and one’s lifestyle and being cognizant of one’s interpersonal relationships and situations. Other researchers (Conte, Plutchik, Jung & Picard, 1990; McCallum, Piper & Joyce, 1992) have found that psychological mindedness is a valuable determinant of therapy efficacy. Psychological mindedness is conceptualized as an individual’s interest in and ability to reflect on motives, psychological processes and inner experiences of the self, and one’s relationship to others (Hall, 1992). Guy and Brown (1992) suggested that increased psychological mindedness benefits therapy because patients with higher levels of psychological mindedness were more receptive to exploring their own motives for behavior as well as the motives of others. This self-beneficial sensitivity towards others’ inner experience has been recognized by researchers in recent years as an important social skill. Empathy, which “requires hypothetical thinking by imagining oneself in the other person’s situation,” is expressed by children as young as two years of age (Perner, 1991, p. 132). Children at 3 yr old exercise belief-desire psychology, according to Wellman (1991, p. 20), which is the assumption that “People engage in actions because they believe those actions will satisfy certain desires.” Children will even try to change the psychological states of others through teasing, comforting, etc., wrote Dunn (1991, p. 53), who also noted that “the understanding of others’ intentions and psychological states is . . closely tied to children’s social and emotional relationships.” Children beyond the age of six are capable of attributing traits to other people; this is also when they begin to define their individual inner selves (Wellman, 1990). Psychological mindedness incorporates these qualities that facilitate the relationship between one’s external (i.e. social) and internal (i.e. self) worlds. While psychological mindedness is an interest in and reflection upon both the self and others, self-consciousness is defined as the act of focusing one’s cognitive reflection specifically on oneself. According to Buss (1980), people who have a high level of private self-consciousness (i.e. awareness of one’s own inner world of feelings and attributes) are more internally focused and more *To whom all correspondence
should be addressed
at the following: 699
I2 Anawon
Road, Plymouth,
MA 02360, U.S.A.
700
Kimberlee J. Trudeau and Rosandra Reich
responsive to internal cues. This characteristic can impact social behavior both positively and negatively (Buss, 1980). If individuals are attuned to their own inner feelings and motives, they are more likely to be socialfy well-adjusted: however, if they are excessiveIy self-oriented, then they may have difficulty in interpersonal relationships because they fail to recognize and appreciate the dual nature of relationships (Turner, Scheier, Carver & Ickes, 1978). Additional studies (Westen, Huebner, Lifton & Silverman, 1991; Hatcher, Hatcher, Berlin & Okla, 1990) have been done that investigate psychological mindedness in relation to the dimensions of several variables. Differences in psychological mindedness have been found across academic disciplines, age, and gender. Clinical psychology students were found to have higher measures of psychological mindedness than natural sciences students (Westen et al., 1991). Hatcher et al. (1990) tested the psychological mindedness of their adolescent subjects and discovered that psychological mindedness both increases with age and varies with gender. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between psychological mindedness, mental well-being, and self-consciousness. Positive correlations are expected between psychological mindedness and mental well-being and between psychological mindedness and self-consciousness. It also is hypothesized that psychology majors are more psychologically minded and self-conscious than non-psychology majors. Finally, this study examines the impact of age and gender on level of psychological-mindedness, and it is hypothesized that women are more psychologically minded than men and that psychological mindedness increases with age. METHOD
Subjects
The Ss in this study were 89 students of a small, private, liberal arts college, which is attended by a predominantly young, white, upper-middle-class, educated population. This convenience sample was 38.2% (n = 34) psychology students, 24.7% (n = 22) students of the humanities (i.e. art history, modern European studies, English, languages, history), 21.3% (n = 19) students of social sciences, not including psychology (i.e. child development, government, international relations, sociology, anthropology, economics), 7.9% (n = 7) students of sciences (i.e. chemistry, zoology, biochemistry, environmental sciences). and 7.9% (n = 7) students who had not declared a major. Psychology students received a half-hour of research credit as compensation for their pa~icipation. Materials
The separate consent form reminded potential Ss that participation in this study was voluntary; this form also assured anonymity and confidentiality. The questionnaire packet used in this study included three scales. The first was the IO-item Private Self-Consciousness (PSC) subscale of the Self-Consciousness Scale, which included items such as “I’m always trying to figure myself out.” and “I reflect about myself a lot.” (Fenigstein, Scheier & Buss, 1975). This measure has been reported to have moderate internal consistency (Cronbach’s x = 0.75), test-retest reliability of 0.76, and an internal validity score of 0.80 (Fenigstein et al., 1975). The data from this study also revealed a moderate internal consistency (Cronbach’s s( = 0.70) and an average corrected item-total correlation of 0.36. The second scale, the Psychological mindedness (PM) Scale, represents a shortened version of Lotterman’s (unpublished 1979 paper) 65item scale (see Conte et al., 1990, p. 427). This 45item scale measures reflection about psychological processes as related to the self and relationships. Individual items were either self-focused (e.g. “I often find myself thinking about what made me act in a certain way.“) or other-focused (e.g. “I am always curious about the reasons people behave as they do.“). The PM Scale is reported to have high reliability (Conte et al., 1990). High internal consistency reliability was found for this inst~ment in the present study (Cronbach’s N= 0.87; average corrected item-total correlation = 0.35). The final scale was a shortened version of the original, abbreviated form of the Happy Scale (Ryff, 1989), which included 84 items, six scales with 14 items. For a brief overall measure of well-being, this scale was shortened by choosing four questions from each subscale (i.e. Autonomy, Environmental Mastery, Personal Growth, Positive Relations with Others, Purpose in Life, Setf
Psychological mindedness
701
Acceptance), resulting in a total of 24 items. Examples of these items are “I find it satisfying to think about what I have accomplished in life.” and “I do not enjoy being in new situations that require me to change my old familiar ways of doing things.” (Ryff, 1989). This shortened form had high internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s M= 0.94; average corrected item-total correlation = 0.41). Procedure A sign-up sheet and a consent form were put outside the psychology office to recruit psychology students. The sheet explained that this was an opportunity for them to participate in research on self awareness and obtain one half-hour of research credit toward their introductory psychology course requirement. Interested students wrote their names and box numbers in the provided space and the questionnaires were distributed to them through campus mail. Non-psychology students were approached in the college library in a random fashion. Ss read a consent form, signed it, completed the questionnaire, and returned it directly to the researcher or through campus mail.
RESULTS
To test the first hypothesis, that psychological mindedness, mental well-being, and self-consciousness are all positively and linearly related, Pearson r correlations, regressions, and a trend contrast were executed. The results of the Pearson analyses that were computed among these variables are presented in Table 1. As expected, these results indicate that a strong positive linear relationship exists between psychological mindedness and mental well-being, (r = 0.3 1, P ==L 0.01) as well as between psychological mindedness and self-consciousness, (r = 0.45, P < 0.0 1). Note, however, that there was no positive, linear relationship found between self-consciousness and mental well-being, r = - 0.03, P > 0.05. Furthermore, as none of the Pearson r correlations were equal to 0.80 or above, there was no evidence of colinearity between these variables.
Table I Correlations of psychological mmdedness, mental well-being, and private self-consciousness scales Correlatmn Scale Psychological mindedness mental well-being Psychological mmdedness self-consciousness Self-consciousness mental well-beine
r
0.3
Statistics P
I
0.45 - 0.03
0.0I 0.0 I n.s.
A bivariate regression was executed to identify the extent to which psychological mindedness predicts mental well-being. Psychological mindedness was used as the predictor variable and mental well-being as the criterion variable. This analysis revealed that psychological mindedness explained 10% of the variance in level of mental well-being [R* = 0.10; F(l, 86) = 9.15, P < 0.01; p = 0.31; b-weight = 0.57, P < 0.011. A multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the degree to which psychological mindedness and self-consciousness predict well-being. Psychological mindedness and self-consciousness were used as the predictor variables and mental well-being as the criterion variable. The results of this analysis are presented in Table 2 and reveal that psychological mindedness and self-consciousness explained 14% of the variance in level of mental well-being [R’ = 0.14; F(2, 85) = 6.74, P < 0.011. Both self-consciousness (/3 = - 0.23, P < 0.05) and psychological mindedness (/? = 0.42, P < 0.01) contributed significantly to predicting the variance of mental well-being. As revealed by the P-weights, psychological mindedness contributes twice as much to the variance of mental well-being as does self-consciousness. The b-weight scores (shown in Table 2) indicate that as psychological mindedness increases, the level of mental well-being increases, and the level of self-consciousness decreases,
Kimberlee J. Trudeau and Rosandra Reich
702 Table
2.
Multiple
regression mindedness
of
Variable Self-consciousness Psychological
private
self-consciousness.
scores predicting
mindednes\
mental
and
psychological
well-being
b-weight
P-weight
- 0.22
- 0.23
0.76
0.42
r-value
Sig r
2.00
0.05
3.66
0.01
-
A trend contrast was used to examine whether there is a linear relationship between psychological mindedness and mental well-being. As expected, a positive linear relationship was found, t(8.5) = 2.21, P < 0.05. The second hypothesis that psychology students are more psychologically minded and less self-conscious than students with other majors was tested with several analyses. A multivariate analysis of variance with these variables by major revealed a significant main effect [ Wilks i = 0.78; F(6, 154) = 3.32, P < 0.011. As hypothesized, follow-up univariate analyses demonstrated that there was a main effect for major on the level of the students’ psychological mindedness, F(3,78) = 2.69, P = 0.052, and on their level of self-consciousness, F(3,78) = 6.04, P < 0.01. Follow up Tukey tests revealed that psychology majors are more psychologically minded than other social science students [F(3, 81) = 2.69, P = 0.0521, and that psychology majors are more self-conscious than students of humanities and sciences, F(3, 81) = 5.80, P < 0.01.
Table
3.
Basic statistics
of psychological
ness, and mental
well-being
Major Psychology
mindedness,
Mental
Self-
mindedness
well-being
consciousness
M
3.1 I
3.68
2.87
SD
0.25
0.6 I
0.52
sciences
3.41
2.42
SD
0.28
0.62
0.50
?I
22
Ic;
2.88
3.78
SD
0.37
0.43 I9
2.49 0.52 I9
Ll
2.93
3.62
2.13
SD
0.37
0.25
0.73
II
The third hypothesis with a oneway analysis P > 0.05.
34
2.97
19 Sciences
34
II;
22 Social
self-consciousmaior
Psychological
34 Humamties
private
scores by academic
7
-,
that women have a higher measure of psychological mindedness was tested of variance. No significant difference was found for gender, F( 1, 88) = 0.01,
Table
4.
Basic statistics
of psychological
mindedness
Psychological
mindedness
Gender Males
s”
2.99 0.33 32
Females
kl SD n
3.00 0.29 57
by gender
Psychological mindedness Table 5. Basic statistics of psychological year First years M SD n
3.03 0.25 28
703
mindedness by class
Sophomores
Juniors
Seniors
2.91 0.33 19
2.96 0.33 25
3.10 0.30 17
The last hypothesis examined in this study was that psychological mindedness increases with age. This was tested using an analysis of variance with psychological mindedness as the dependent variable and class year as the independent variable. The hypothesis was not supported; there was no significant difference between levels of psychological mindedness of students of different class years, F(3, 88) = 1.47, P > 0.05.
DISCUSSION
People have utilized ‘folk psychology’ for centuries in their efforts to deduce what motivates others’ behavior (Whiten & Perner, 1991). According to the results of the present study, self-awareness and social curiosity are good for one’s mental health as shown by a positive linear correlation between psychological mindedness and mental well-being. These results are consistent with observations of Britzman and Henkin (1992) who found that increasing patients’ awareness of self and others contributed to their mental health. Moreover, the present study revealed that psychological mindedness contributes twice as much to the variance of mental well-being as does self-consciousness and that this is a positive effect. Although self-consciousness is significantly positively correlated with psychological mindedness, self-consciousness has a negative effect on mental well-being. These findings suggest that psychological mindedness, the awareness of one’s and other’s thoughts, feelings, and motives, has positive influences on mental health, but excessive self-scrutiny is detrimental to one’s mental health. Differences in psychological mindedness and self-consciousness were observed between students of various academic disciplines. Psychology majors, as hypothesized, were more psychologically minded than were other majors. Although Westen et al. (1991) found that clinical psychology students were more psychologically minded than students of the natural sciences, the results of the present study showed that students of psychology had a significantly higher level of psychological mindedness than other social science students (i.e. child development, government, international relations, sociology, anthropology, economics). This implies that students who are interested in studying psychology are more interested and/or more trained in reflecting upon the dynamics of human behavior regarding both self and others than students of similar academic disciplines. Psychology students also had higher levels of self-consciousness than students of the humanities (i.e. art history, modern European studies, English, languages, history) and science students (i.e. chemistry, biology, biochemistry, environmental sciences). Therefore, psychology majors are not only more sensitive to what others might be experiencing within their separate psychological worlds, but are, as hypothesized, particularly attuned to their own. Future studies should include more students of the sciences, as well as engineering students, and/or business students in their samples to examine if liberal arts students, in general, are more psychologically minded than students in more technical and less person-oriented disciplines. Lastly, contrary to the study done by Hatcher et al. (1990) which found that psychological mindedness increases with age and varies with gender, no significance was found for these variables within this study. The results of the present study reveal that the nature of psychological mindedness transcends age and gender at least for this small, homogeneous, young, predominantly white, upper-middle-class, educated population. Acknowledgemenfs-The manuscript.
authors would like to thank Ann S. Devlin
and Paul J. Trudeau for their constructive
comments
on this
IQ4
Kimberlee
J. Trudeau
and Rosandra
Reich
REFERENCES Britzman, M. J. & Henkin, A. L. (1992). Wellness and personality priorities: The utilization of Adlerian encouragement strategies. Individual Psychology, 48, 194-202. Buss, A. H. (1980). Self-consciousness and social anxiery. San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman. Conte, H. R., Plutchik, R., Jung, B. B. & Picard, S. (I 990). Psychological mindedness as a predictor of psychotherapy outcome. A preliminary report. Comprehensive Psychiatv, 31, 42643 I. Dunn, J. (1991). Understanding others: Evidence from naturalisitc studies of children. In A. W. Whiten’s (Ed.), Natural rheories qfmind. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Fenigstein, A., Scheier, M. F. & Buss, A. H. (1975). Public and private self-consciousness: Assessment and theory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43, 522-521. Guy, J. D. & Brown, C. K. (1992). How to benefit emotionally from private practice. Ps~chotherup?: in Privare Practice, 10, 27-39. Hall, J. (1992). Psychological mindedness: A conceptual model. American Journal of Ps~chorherup~, 46, 131-140. Hatcher, R., Hatcher, S., Berlin, M. & Okla, K. (1990). Psychological mindedness and abstract reasoning in late childhood and adolescence: An exploration using new instruments. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 19, 307-326. McCallum, M., Piper, W. E. &Joyce, A. S. ( 1992). Dropping out from short term group therapy. Ps~chorherapv, 29,206-2 15. Pemer, J. (1991). Understanding the representational mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ryff, C. D. (I 989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal c$ Personality and Social Psq’chology, 57, 1069-I 08 1. Turner, R. G., Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S. & Ickes, W. (1978). Correlates of self-consciousness. Journal af Personality Assessment, 42, 285-289. Wellman, H. M. (1990). The child’s theory of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wellman, H. M. (I 991). From desires to beliefs: Acquisition of a theory of mind. In A. W. Whiten’s (Ed.), Natural theories of mind. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Westen, D., Huebner, D. Lifton, N. & Silverman, M. (1991). Assessing complexity of representations of social causality: A comparison of natural science and clinical psychology graduate students. Journal of Social and Uinical Pswhology, IO, 448458. Whiten, A. & Perner, J. (1991). Fundamental issues in the multidisciplinary study of mindreading. In A. W. Whiten’s (Ed.), Nurural theories of mind. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
idid
Difl:
Vol.
19, No. 5, pp. 699-704.
Copyright
Pergamon
0
1995 Elsevier
Printed in Great Britain.
All rights reserved
019l-8869/95
CORRELATES
OF PSYCHOLOGICAL
Kimberlee Connecticut
College,
J. Trudeau*
270 Mohegan
Avenue,
$9.50+0.00
MINDEDNESS
and Rosandra New London,
1995
Science Ltd
Reich CT 06320-4196,
U.S.A.
(Received 23 Januur\ 1995) Summary-Levels of psychological mindedness, mental well-being, and self-consciousness of 89 students of a small liberal arts college were examined. Psychological mindedness, the awareness of one’s and others’ thoughts, feelings, and motives, is a recently studied phenomenon. The main hypothesis was that there is a positive linear correlation between psychological mindedness, as measured by the Psychological Mindedness Scale (Conte, Plutchik, Jung & Picard, Comprehensive Ps.vchiarr?; .?I, 426-43 1, 1990). and mental well-being, as measured by the Happy Scale (Ryff, Journal ofPersonalityund Sociul Psychology, 57, 1069-1081, 1989). This hypothesis was supported (P< 0.01). As expected, there was also a positive linear correlation between self-consciousness, as measured by the Private Self-Consciousness Scale (Fenigstein, Scheier & Buss, Journal of Consulring and CIinicul Psychology, 43, 522-527, 1975), and psychological mindedness (P < 0.01). A multiple regression indicated that as psychological mindedness increases, the level of mental well-being increases, and the level of self-consciousness decreases. In addition, psychology students were found to be significantly more psychologically minded than other social science students (P = 0.05) and more self-conscious than humanities students and science students (PC 0.01). Though psychological mindedness varied with major, it was found to transcend both class year and gender.
INTRODUCTION
As the majority of studies on mental health have focused on the mentally ill, there is consequently little literature on the relationship of psychological mindedness to mental well-being. One of the few examples of this literature is a study by Britzman and Henkin (1992). These researchers found that their patients’ psychological attentiveness to both self and others, contributed to their mental health. They focused on the characteristics that foster wellness: knowing one’s self and one’s lifestyle and being cognizant of one’s interpersonal relationships and situations. Other researchers (Conte, Plutchik, Jung & Picard, 1990; McCallum, Piper & Joyce, 1992) have found that psychological mindedness is a valuable determinant of therapy efficacy. Psychological mindedness is conceptualized as an individual’s interest in and ability to reflect on motives, psychological processes and inner experiences of the self, and one’s relationship to others (Hall, 1992). Guy and Brown (1992) suggested that increased psychological mindedness benefits therapy because patients with higher levels of psychological mindedness were more receptive to exploring their own motives for behavior as well as the motives of others. This self-beneficial sensitivity towards others’ inner experience has been recognized by researchers in recent years as an important social skill. Empathy, which “requires hypothetical thinking by imagining oneself in the other person’s situation,” is expressed by children as young as two years of age (Perner, 1991, p. 132). Children at 3 yr old exercise belief-desire psychology, according to Wellman (1991, p. 20), which is the assumption that “People engage in actions because they believe those actions will satisfy certain desires.” Children will even try to change the psychological states of others through teasing, comforting, etc., wrote Dunn (1991, p. 53), who also noted that “the understanding of others’ intentions and psychological states is . . closely tied to children’s social and emotional relationships.” Children beyond the age of six are capable of attributing traits to other people; this is also when they begin to define their individual inner selves (Wellman, 1990). Psychological mindedness incorporates these qualities that facilitate the relationship between one’s external (i.e. social) and internal (i.e. self) worlds. While psychological mindedness is an interest in and reflection upon both the self and others, self-consciousness is defined as the act of focusing one’s cognitive reflection specifically on oneself. According to Buss (1980), people who have a high level of private self-consciousness (i.e. awareness of one’s own inner world of feelings and attributes) are more internally focused and more *To whom all correspondence
should be addressed
at the following: 699
I2 Anawon
Road, Plymouth,
MA 02360, U.S.A.
700
Kimberlee J. Trudeau and Rosandra Reich
responsive to internal cues. This characteristic can impact social behavior both positively and negatively (Buss, 1980). If individuals are attuned to their own inner feelings and motives, they are more likely to be socialfy well-adjusted: however, if they are excessiveIy self-oriented, then they may have difficulty in interpersonal relationships because they fail to recognize and appreciate the dual nature of relationships (Turner, Scheier, Carver & Ickes, 1978). Additional studies (Westen, Huebner, Lifton & Silverman, 1991; Hatcher, Hatcher, Berlin & Okla, 1990) have been done that investigate psychological mindedness in relation to the dimensions of several variables. Differences in psychological mindedness have been found across academic disciplines, age, and gender. Clinical psychology students were found to have higher measures of psychological mindedness than natural sciences students (Westen et al., 1991). Hatcher et al. (1990) tested the psychological mindedness of their adolescent subjects and discovered that psychological mindedness both increases with age and varies with gender. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between psychological mindedness, mental well-being, and self-consciousness. Positive correlations are expected between psychological mindedness and mental well-being and between psychological mindedness and self-consciousness. It also is hypothesized that psychology majors are more psychologically minded and self-conscious than non-psychology majors. Finally, this study examines the impact of age and gender on level of psychological-mindedness, and it is hypothesized that women are more psychologically minded than men and that psychological mindedness increases with age. METHOD
Subjects
The Ss in this study were 89 students of a small, private, liberal arts college, which is attended by a predominantly young, white, upper-middle-class, educated population. This convenience sample was 38.2% (n = 34) psychology students, 24.7% (n = 22) students of the humanities (i.e. art history, modern European studies, English, languages, history), 21.3% (n = 19) students of social sciences, not including psychology (i.e. child development, government, international relations, sociology, anthropology, economics), 7.9% (n = 7) students of sciences (i.e. chemistry, zoology, biochemistry, environmental sciences). and 7.9% (n = 7) students who had not declared a major. Psychology students received a half-hour of research credit as compensation for their pa~icipation. Materials
The separate consent form reminded potential Ss that participation in this study was voluntary; this form also assured anonymity and confidentiality. The questionnaire packet used in this study included three scales. The first was the IO-item Private Self-Consciousness (PSC) subscale of the Self-Consciousness Scale, which included items such as “I’m always trying to figure myself out.” and “I reflect about myself a lot.” (Fenigstein, Scheier & Buss, 1975). This measure has been reported to have moderate internal consistency (Cronbach’s x = 0.75), test-retest reliability of 0.76, and an internal validity score of 0.80 (Fenigstein et al., 1975). The data from this study also revealed a moderate internal consistency (Cronbach’s s( = 0.70) and an average corrected item-total correlation of 0.36. The second scale, the Psychological mindedness (PM) Scale, represents a shortened version of Lotterman’s (unpublished 1979 paper) 65item scale (see Conte et al., 1990, p. 427). This 45item scale measures reflection about psychological processes as related to the self and relationships. Individual items were either self-focused (e.g. “I often find myself thinking about what made me act in a certain way.“) or other-focused (e.g. “I am always curious about the reasons people behave as they do.“). The PM Scale is reported to have high reliability (Conte et al., 1990). High internal consistency reliability was found for this inst~ment in the present study (Cronbach’s N= 0.87; average corrected item-total correlation = 0.35). The final scale was a shortened version of the original, abbreviated form of the Happy Scale (Ryff, 1989), which included 84 items, six scales with 14 items. For a brief overall measure of well-being, this scale was shortened by choosing four questions from each subscale (i.e. Autonomy, Environmental Mastery, Personal Growth, Positive Relations with Others, Purpose in Life, Setf
Psychological mindedness
701
Acceptance), resulting in a total of 24 items. Examples of these items are “I find it satisfying to think about what I have accomplished in life.” and “I do not enjoy being in new situations that require me to change my old familiar ways of doing things.” (Ryff, 1989). This shortened form had high internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s M= 0.94; average corrected item-total correlation = 0.41). Procedure A sign-up sheet and a consent form were put outside the psychology office to recruit psychology students. The sheet explained that this was an opportunity for them to participate in research on self awareness and obtain one half-hour of research credit toward their introductory psychology course requirement. Interested students wrote their names and box numbers in the provided space and the questionnaires were distributed to them through campus mail. Non-psychology students were approached in the college library in a random fashion. Ss read a consent form, signed it, completed the questionnaire, and returned it directly to the researcher or through campus mail.
RESULTS
To test the first hypothesis, that psychological mindedness, mental well-being, and self-consciousness are all positively and linearly related, Pearson r correlations, regressions, and a trend contrast were executed. The results of the Pearson analyses that were computed among these variables are presented in Table 1. As expected, these results indicate that a strong positive linear relationship exists between psychological mindedness and mental well-being, (r = 0.3 1, P ==L 0.01) as well as between psychological mindedness and self-consciousness, (r = 0.45, P < 0.0 1). Note, however, that there was no positive, linear relationship found between self-consciousness and mental well-being, r = - 0.03, P > 0.05. Furthermore, as none of the Pearson r correlations were equal to 0.80 or above, there was no evidence of colinearity between these variables.
Table I Correlations of psychological mmdedness, mental well-being, and private self-consciousness scales Correlatmn Scale Psychological mindedness mental well-being Psychological mmdedness self-consciousness Self-consciousness mental well-beine
r
0.3
Statistics P
I
0.45 - 0.03
0.0I 0.0 I n.s.
A bivariate regression was executed to identify the extent to which psychological mindedness predicts mental well-being. Psychological mindedness was used as the predictor variable and mental well-being as the criterion variable. This analysis revealed that psychological mindedness explained 10% of the variance in level of mental well-being [R* = 0.10; F(l, 86) = 9.15, P < 0.01; p = 0.31; b-weight = 0.57, P < 0.011. A multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the degree to which psychological mindedness and self-consciousness predict well-being. Psychological mindedness and self-consciousness were used as the predictor variables and mental well-being as the criterion variable. The results of this analysis are presented in Table 2 and reveal that psychological mindedness and self-consciousness explained 14% of the variance in level of mental well-being [R’ = 0.14; F(2, 85) = 6.74, P < 0.011. Both self-consciousness (/3 = - 0.23, P < 0.05) and psychological mindedness (/? = 0.42, P < 0.01) contributed significantly to predicting the variance of mental well-being. As revealed by the P-weights, psychological mindedness contributes twice as much to the variance of mental well-being as does self-consciousness. The b-weight scores (shown in Table 2) indicate that as psychological mindedness increases, the level of mental well-being increases, and the level of self-consciousness decreases,
Kimberlee J. Trudeau and Rosandra Reich
702 Table
2.
Multiple
regression mindedness
of
Variable Self-consciousness Psychological
private
self-consciousness.
scores predicting
mindednes\
mental
and
psychological
well-being
b-weight
P-weight
- 0.22
- 0.23
0.76
0.42
r-value
Sig r
2.00
0.05
3.66
0.01
-
A trend contrast was used to examine whether there is a linear relationship between psychological mindedness and mental well-being. As expected, a positive linear relationship was found, t(8.5) = 2.21, P < 0.05. The second hypothesis that psychology students are more psychologically minded and less self-conscious than students with other majors was tested with several analyses. A multivariate analysis of variance with these variables by major revealed a significant main effect [ Wilks i = 0.78; F(6, 154) = 3.32, P < 0.011. As hypothesized, follow-up univariate analyses demonstrated that there was a main effect for major on the level of the students’ psychological mindedness, F(3,78) = 2.69, P = 0.052, and on their level of self-consciousness, F(3,78) = 6.04, P < 0.01. Follow up Tukey tests revealed that psychology majors are more psychologically minded than other social science students [F(3, 81) = 2.69, P = 0.0521, and that psychology majors are more self-conscious than students of humanities and sciences, F(3, 81) = 5.80, P < 0.01.
Table
3.
Basic statistics
of psychological
ness, and mental
well-being
Major Psychology
mindedness,
Mental
Self-
mindedness
well-being
consciousness
M
3.1 I
3.68
2.87
SD
0.25
0.6 I
0.52
sciences
3.41
2.42
SD
0.28
0.62
0.50
?I
22
Ic;
2.88
3.78
SD
0.37
0.43 I9
2.49 0.52 I9
Ll
2.93
3.62
2.13
SD
0.37
0.25
0.73
II
The third hypothesis with a oneway analysis P > 0.05.
34
2.97
19 Sciences
34
II;
22 Social
self-consciousmaior
Psychological
34 Humamties
private
scores by academic
7
-,
that women have a higher measure of psychological mindedness was tested of variance. No significant difference was found for gender, F( 1, 88) = 0.01,
Table
4.
Basic statistics
of psychological
mindedness
Psychological
mindedness
Gender Males
s”
2.99 0.33 32
Females
kl SD n
3.00 0.29 57
by gender
Psychological mindedness Table 5. Basic statistics of psychological year First years M SD n
3.03 0.25 28
703
mindedness by class
Sophomores
Juniors
Seniors
2.91 0.33 19
2.96 0.33 25
3.10 0.30 17
The last hypothesis examined in this study was that psychological mindedness increases with age. This was tested using an analysis of variance with psychological mindedness as the dependent variable and class year as the independent variable. The hypothesis was not supported; there was no significant difference between levels of psychological mindedness of students of different class years, F(3, 88) = 1.47, P > 0.05.
DISCUSSION
People have utilized ‘folk psychology’ for centuries in their efforts to deduce what motivates others’ behavior (Whiten & Perner, 1991). According to the results of the present study, self-awareness and social curiosity are good for one’s mental health as shown by a positive linear correlation between psychological mindedness and mental well-being. These results are consistent with observations of Britzman and Henkin (1992) who found that increasing patients’ awareness of self and others contributed to their mental health. Moreover, the present study revealed that psychological mindedness contributes twice as much to the variance of mental well-being as does self-consciousness and that this is a positive effect. Although self-consciousness is significantly positively correlated with psychological mindedness, self-consciousness has a negative effect on mental well-being. These findings suggest that psychological mindedness, the awareness of one’s and other’s thoughts, feelings, and motives, has positive influences on mental health, but excessive self-scrutiny is detrimental to one’s mental health. Differences in psychological mindedness and self-consciousness were observed between students of various academic disciplines. Psychology majors, as hypothesized, were more psychologically minded than were other majors. Although Westen et al. (1991) found that clinical psychology students were more psychologically minded than students of the natural sciences, the results of the present study showed that students of psychology had a significantly higher level of psychological mindedness than other social science students (i.e. child development, government, international relations, sociology, anthropology, economics). This implies that students who are interested in studying psychology are more interested and/or more trained in reflecting upon the dynamics of human behavior regarding both self and others than students of similar academic disciplines. Psychology students also had higher levels of self-consciousness than students of the humanities (i.e. art history, modern European studies, English, languages, history) and science students (i.e. chemistry, biology, biochemistry, environmental sciences). Therefore, psychology majors are not only more sensitive to what others might be experiencing within their separate psychological worlds, but are, as hypothesized, particularly attuned to their own. Future studies should include more students of the sciences, as well as engineering students, and/or business students in their samples to examine if liberal arts students, in general, are more psychologically minded than students in more technical and less person-oriented disciplines. Lastly, contrary to the study done by Hatcher et al. (1990) which found that psychological mindedness increases with age and varies with gender, no significance was found for these variables within this study. The results of the present study reveal that the nature of psychological mindedness transcends age and gender at least for this small, homogeneous, young, predominantly white, upper-middle-class, educated population. Acknowledgemenfs-The manuscript.
authors would like to thank Ann S. Devlin
and Paul J. Trudeau for their constructive
comments
on this
IQ4
Kimberlee
J. Trudeau
and Rosandra
Reich
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