EFFECT OF EMOTIONAL MATURITY ON SELF ESTEEM OF PHYSICALLY DISABLED STUDENTS

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship of emotional maturity and self esteem of physically disabled students, whose disability ranges between 40 percent to 70 percent. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant relationship between emotional maturity and self esteem of literate physically disabled students, To verify the hypothesis,50 physically disabled students ( 25 males and 25 females, age range=18-20 years, Mage =19 years ) were selected from Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology for Handicapped, Kanpur. Emotional maturity scale developed by Singh and Bhargava and Self esteem scale developed by Rosenberg were administered on participants to collect the data. The collected data were analyzed by applying pearson’s product moment correlation in SPSS software. The finding revealed no significant relationship between emotional maturity and self esteem of physically disabled students. From this study, it was concluded that physically disabled students, whether they are emotional mature, are facing low self esteem. Keywords: Physically disabled students, Emotional maturity, Self esteem.

INTRODUCTION

Disability in human life is a jeopardizing condition. Disability is described as a “Complex phenomenon” by the world health organization (WHO 2011). In an overarching terms, disability is used to refer to various types of impairments and restrictions in the social and physical interaction of Individual with environment(Kim&Lehto,2013).Wall (1956)concluded that psychological importance of handicap restricts one’s experience and abnormally shapes his social and emotional growth. According to WHO report (2011),an estimated 650 million disabled people are living in the world. The vast majority of these people, some 150 million live in the developing world. As per census of India(2011), there are 26,810,557 people affected with certain form of disability. According to ministry of social justice and empowerment (2011), India has around 46.2 lakhs (1.82 percent) population between 10 to 19 years who are suffering with some kind of disability. Among eight types of disabilities, movement disability has found to be 20 percent whereas the report of other disabilities are as follows- seeing: 19 percent, hearing: 19 percent, speech: 7 percent, mental retardation: 6 percent, mental illness: 3 percent, any other: 18 percent, multiple disability: 8 percent.The percentage of disability of any kind in males is 22 percent, whereas 18 percent females suffered with some kind of disability (as reported by ministry of social justice and empowerment,2011).According to “Disabled persons in India:A statistical profile 2016” report, there are 54.52% (146,18,353) disabled literates persons.The percentage of literate Male-female disabled population is 63.94 percent (93,48,353) and 36.05 percent (52,70,000) respectively.Many studies revealed that common people don’t like to pay attention to physically disabled individuals and as a result, these differently abled persons become emotionally disturbed(Liaqat&Akram, 2014).The emotional disturbance of these disabled individuals further causes depression, life dissatisfaction, anxiety and low self-esteem(Mohsen,et. al,2013).It has been observed that high emotionally disturbed individuals with physical disabilities are not able to adjust properly in the life.Murugani (2009) observed that it can be difficult for an individual with a physical disabilityto deal with many limitations in their life and to overcome from it.United states census bureau (2003)reported that about 5.2 million American youth, aged 5 to 20 had some long term physical, mental or emotional disabling condition, and low self esteem was found among those disabled. Nair&Singh(2014) found no gender difference in self- esteem of physically disabled late adolescents.Consistent finding was reported by Jamadar& Manjula (2013).Liaqat&Akram (2014)found significant difference in the level of selfesteem among male and female physically handicapped and results showed that physically handicapped males scored higher in self- esteem as compared to physically handicapped females, whereas Nemcek (2013)found higher self esteem in disabled women than men.Bajpai (2006)found significant difference in emotional maturity of orthopedically handicapped adolescent boys and girls. High emotional maturity in male adolescents were reported by her than female adolescents. In a study conducted by Kumar&Verma (2019) on impact of emotional maturity on self confidence of physically challenged students,it was found that high emotional maturity ofphysically challenged students is positively related to greater self confidence. It is observed that approximately 25 percent of adolescents with physical disability face depression, life dissatisfaction, anxiety and low self esteem. Self esteem is a personal judgement of worthiness which an individual conveys to other persons by verbal reports and other overt expressive behaviours. The question arises-is technical education helpful in upgrading the level of self esteem among physically disabled adolescents, hence it needs to be explored. The behaviour of any individual is affected by the emotional maturity level that one possess to lead an effective life. It is observed that emotional maturity or stable mind makes the person to be able to evaluate his assets and liabilities and strive towards an improved integration of his thoughts, his emotional attitude and his overt behaviour. Hence the present study aimed to investigate the relationship of emotional maturity and self esteem of physically disabled students, whose disability ranges between 40 percent to 70 percent.

HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY:

There would be a significant relationship between categories of emotional maturity,i.e. emotional stability, emotional progression, social adjustment, personality integration, independence and emotional maturity in toto and self-esteem of physically disabled students.

METHOD

Research Design:  An Ex-post facto research design was used.

Sample:  A total number of 50 physically disabled students (25 boys and 25 girls; age range:18-20 years ;Mage=19 years ) was purposively drawn from Dr.B.R.Ambedkar Institute of Technology for Handicapped , Kanpur. After the consent of the sample, data collection was done.

Tools:

Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale(1965): This scale is a ten item likert scale with items answered on a four point rating scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.The scale has positive as well as negative scoring.Test-retest reliability for the RSE scale ranges from 0.82 to 0.85.Internal consistency for the Rosenberg self esteem scale is from 0.77 to 0.88.Higher the score ,higher the self esteem.

Emotional Maturity Scale: It is a self reporting scale. This scale was developed by Singh & Bhargava(2005).This 48 item scale has questions related to the following five categories: Emotional Stability,Emotional Progression, Social Adjustment, Personality Integration, Independence. The test-retest reliability of whole test was 0.75 and validity 0.64 .

Statistical Analysis: Statistical analysis was done by using Pearson product moment correlation in SPSS software.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION:

Table-1 

Category	Variables	Value    of “r”	p Value	Level of Significance
Disabled Students (N=50)	Self Esteem	.066	.650	NS
	Emotional Maturity

An observation of Table – 1 :  reveals that there is an insignificant relationship between emotional maturity and self esteem ( r(50)=0.066,p=0.650 ).

Table-2

Category	Variables	Self Esteem       Value of              “r”	P Value	Level of Significance
Disabled   Students(N=50)	Emotional Stability	-.023	.873	NS
	Emotional Progression	.086	.551	NS
	Social Adjustment	.039	.787	NS
	Personality Integration	-.154	.284	NS
	Independence	.016	.913	NS

An observation of Table – 2 reveals that correlation of self esteem with emotional maturity dimensions. i.e emotional stability (r= -.23,p=.873 ), with emotional progression (r=.086,p=.551 ), with social adjustment ( r=.039,p=.787 ), with personality integration ( r= -.154, p=.284 ), with independence ( r=.016,p=.913 ) is indicating that there is no significant relationship between emotional maturity and self esteem.

Findings:The following finding has been extracted from the study : There is no significant relationship between emotional maturity and self esteem of physically disabled male and female students who are receiving a technical education from a reputed institute.

Implemention : self esteem of physically disabled students is found to be not related with emotional maturity among physically challenged adolescents, irrespective of the education they are receiving from a reputed institute. Hence an intervention programme of upgrading the feeling of incapability, insignificance and worthiness should be organized from time to time, so that a large proportion of population ( around 1.47 crore ) can be part of main stream line of society and can lead their lives normally against all odds.

Limitations: The study has following limitations

• Sample size is not large enough to generalize finding on the whole population ofpolytechnicdiplomastudents.

• Sample was selected from only Dr.B.R.Ambedkar Institute of Technology for Handicapped, Kanpur.So sample is not representative of all Indian polytechnic diploma students.

• Further studies on emotional maturity and self esteem can include other variables like family support,social support ,self confidence and school environment etc.

References: