Personal Meaning and Psychological Well-being of Senior College Students of Pup College of Social Sciences and Development

Abstract

This research study attempted to determine the personal meaning and psychological well-being of selected senior college students of the College of Social Sciences and Development. It also sought to establish whether a relationship exists between the two personal meaning and well-being of the respondents. The descriptive-correlation was employed as the research methodology of the present study. The method is appropriate since it aimed to describe the present condition of the two variables. To measure personal meaning and psychological well-being of the respondents, standardized instruments such as the Personal Meaning Profile (PMP) and WellBeing Manifestation Measurement Scale (WBMMS) were administered among the respondents. The respondents were 258 students from the five Departments of the College of Social Sciences and Development (History, Cooperatives, Economics, Psychology, and Sociology). They were chosen randomly using the stratified sampling procedure. To interpret the data of the study, both the descriptive statistics (ranking and arithmetic mean), and inferential statistics (Pearson-r) were used. Based on the findings, the respondents showed positive personal meaning with respect to the variables achievement, relationship, religion, and self-transcendence. The
respondents, however, manifested moderately high personal meaning with respect to intimacy and fair treatment. The findings also revealed that the overall psychological well-being of the respondents is positive as revealed in their responses to the wellbeing variables control of self and events, happiness, social involvement, self-esteem, mental balance, and sociability. The relation between the personal meaning and psychological well-being of the respondents was also tested. Based on the findings, there is a significant association between personal meaning and the variables control of self and events, happiness, social involvement self-esteem, mental balance, and sociability. The findings clearly revealed that the well-being of the respondents depends partly on their positive perception of their personal meaning which is measured using such aspects of the respondents’ lives as their relationship with others, their sense of being intimate with others which may be personal or private in nature, their sense of accomplishment, their religious orientation, their sense of purpose and direction, and sense of satisfaction or happiness with themselves.



Keywords: Achievement, Happiness, Personal meaning, and psychological well-being

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