PSYCHOLOGY IN EVERYDAY LIFE (HUM1022)

FALL SEMESTER 2021-2022

PROJECT REPORT
ON

“STUDY OF SELF ESTEEM AMOUNG THE COLLEGE STUDENTS”

UNDER THE GUIDENCE OF

DR. TONY P JOSE
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
SSL, VIT, VELLORE – 632014

BY

Yukta Jaiswal 18BCE0954

Harish K 18BEC0353
Jaya Sindhu 18BEC0415
Mrudu Lahari M 18BEC0976

SLOT: A2

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 DECLARATION

We, the students of VIT University, Vellore with registration numbers and names

18BCE0954 – YUKTA JAISWAL

18BEC0353 – HARISH K

18BEC0415 – JAYA SINDHU

18BEC0976 – MRUDU LAHARI M

Hereby, declare that the project report entitled “STUDY OF SELF ESTEEM AMOUNG THE
COLLEGE STUDENTS ” submitted by us to VIT University, Vellore, in partial fulfilment of the
requirement for the course “PSYCHOLOGY IN EVERYDAY LIFE” with course code HUM1022,
is a bonafide work carried out by us under the supervision of Prof. Tony P Jose, Department of
Social Sciences, School of Social Sciences and Languages, VIT University, Vellore – 632014. We
further declare that the work reported in this project has not been submitted and will not be
submitted, either in part or in full, for the award of any other degree or diploma in or any other
Institute or University.

Place: Vellore

Date: 10.12.2021

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 CERTIFICATE FROM THE GUIDE

This is to certify that the project work entitled “STUDY OF SELF ESTEEM AMOUNG THE
COLLEGE STUDENTS “ submitted by

18BCE0954 – YUKTA JAISWAL

18BEC0353 – HARISH K

18BEC0415 – JAYA SINDHU

18BEC0976 – MRUDU LAHARI M

To VIT University, Vellore, in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the course
“PYSCHOLOGY IN EVERYDAY LIFE” with course code HUM1022, is a bonafide work
carried out by him/her under my supervision. The project fulfils the requirement as per the
regulations of this University and in my opinion meets the necessary standards for submission.
The contents of this report have not been submitted and will not be submitted either in part or in
full, for the award of any other degree or diploma in this Institute or any other Institute or
University.

Place: Vellore

Date: 10.12.2021 Dr. Tony P Jose

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At the outset, we thank the Almighty God for his blessings for granting us the
knowledge and right aptitude to successfully complete our project work.

We would like to express our special gratitude and thanks to our guide Prof. Tony P
Jose, School of Social Sciences and Languages, whose esteemed guidance and
immense support encouraged us to complete the project successfully.

We wish to express our sincere thanks to our Honorable Chancellor, Dr. G.

Viswanathan; esteemed Vice-Presidents, Shri. Sankar Viswanathan; Shri. Shekar
Viswanathan and Shri. G. V. Selvam; respected Vice Chancellor, Dr. Anand A.
Samuel; respected Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr. S. Narayanan of this prestigious VIT
University, Vellore for providing us an excellent world class academic environment
and facilities for pursuing our degrees.

Our sincere gratitude lies to the Dean, Dr. Manoharan M, School of Social Sciences
and Languages, and Head of the Department of Social Sciences for providing us an
opportunity to do our project work in VIT University.

We also thank all the faculty members of the School of Social Sciences and
Languages and the non-teaching staff for giving us the courage and strength that we
needed to achieve our goals.

Our special thanks to our friends for their timely help and suggestions rendered for
the successful completion of this project.

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 INDEX
Table of Contents

SL. NO. TITLE PAGE NO.

1. Introduction 8

2. Literature Review 10

3. Research Methodology 13

4. Results and Discussion 14

5. Conclusion 21

6. References 22

7. Appendix 24

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 LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

PARTICULARS PAGE NO.

Fig 1 Age Distribution of Respondents 14

Fig 2 Gender of Respondents 14

Fig 3 On the whole, I am satisfied with myself 15

Fig 4 At times I think I am no good at all. 15

Fig 5 I feel that I have a number of good 15

qualities.

Fig 6 I am able to do things as well as most 16

other people.

Fig 7 I feel I do not have much to be proud of. 16

Fig 8 I certainly feel useless at times. 16

Fig 9 I feel that I'm a person of worth, at least 17

on an equal plane with others.

Fig 10 I wish I could have more respect for 17

myself.

Fig 11 All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am 17

a failure.

Fig 12 I take a positive attitude toward myself. 18

Table 1 Group Statistics 18

Table 2 T – Test for Equality of Means 18

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STUDY OS SELF ESTEEM AMOUNG THE COLLEGE STUDENTS

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine college students’ self-esteem amoung university
students and to reach conclusive evidence if self-esteem is dependent on gender or
not. The sample of the study consisted of 200 students studying in college. The data
was collected through Google Survey , Rosenberg Scale and an SPSS software used
to depict the statistics. A t-test is done to check if there is a significant difference
between the two groups. It is observed that there is no significant difference between
the two groups concerning self-esteem. Nonetheless, no huge contrast was found in
self-esteem amoung males and females. The outcomes propose that high self-esteem
is a significant factor and reinforce the expectation of higher self-worth in females.
The project can be used to educate students and analyze the psychological aspect of
students’ mindset. The study on the topic can be extended to find more about the
effects of academic performance on psychology of students.

Keywords: Self-esteem, SPSS, Rosenberg Scale, Statistics.

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 STUDY OF SELF ESTEEM AMOUNG COLLEGE STUDENTS

CHAPTER I
NATURE & SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Introduction

In psychology, the term self-esteem is utilized to portray an individual's general self-

appreciation worth or individual worth. As such, the amount you acknowledge and
such as yourself. It includes an assortment of convictions about yourself, for
example, the examination of your own appearance, convictions, feelings, and
practices. Self-esteem is in a real sense characterized by how much worth
individuals place on themselves. It is simply the evaluative segment information.
High self-esteem alludes to a profoundly ideal worldwide assessment of the self.
Low self-esteem, by definition, alludes to a troublesome meaning of the self.
(Regardless of whether this implies a completely ominous or generally negative
assessment is a risky differentiation, which we talk about later regarding the
circulation of self-esteem scores.) (Baumeister,2003)

Self-esteem doesn't convey any definitional necessity of exactness at all. Hence,

high self-esteem may allude to a precise, advocated, adjusted valuation for one's
worth personally and one's triumphs and skills, yet it can likewise allude to a
swelled, egotistical, vainglorious, inappropriate feeling of arrogant prevalence over
others. By a similar token, low self-esteem can be either a precise, very much
established comprehension of one's weaknesses personally or a twisted, even
obsessive feeling of instability and inadequacy. Self-esteem is hence recognition
instead of the real world. It alludes to an individual's conviction about whether the
person is shrewd and alluring, for instance, and it doesn't really say anything
regarding whether the individual really is keen and appealing. To show that self-
esteem is itself significant, at that point, examination would need to exhibit that
individuals' convictions about themselves have significant results paying little mind

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to what the hidden truths are. (Marsh, H.W ,1990)

Usually, children with high self-esteem have the tendency of feeling good about
themselves and they can solve their problems on their own irrespective of troubles
and hurdles. They always have high confidence and rational thinking. In addition to
that they always stay optimistic irrespective of the problem. On the contrary,
children with low self-esteem, they doubt themselves in every situation. They lack
confidence and they tend to suffer to take the decision on their own. They have
constant self-critical thoughts about themselves.(Mohammad Aryana, 2010)

In the world of today's education, people tend to have high and low self-esteem
according to academic success and failures. Shamloo the great philosopher has said
that one's self esteem should be valued, accepted, valuable feeling in people about
themselves. Inferiority complex is the most disturbing quality of an individual.
Usually, children tend to put less effort and they feel incompetence and
backwardness about themselves due to inferiority complex. In order to get rid of it
they need healthy growth which means that they should recognize, value and
understand about themselves.

The project can be used to educate students and analyze the psychological aspect of
students’ performance. The study on the topic can be extended to find more about
the effects of academic performance on psychology of students.

Need and Significance of the study

Self-esteem is thought of as occurring on a continuum, meaning that it is thought to

smoothly vary in amount or magnitude from low to high across different individuals.
Some people have higher self-esteem, while other people have lower self-esteem.
The differences between these people are not obvious, but instead are apparent only
through comparison of their thoughts and feelings about their worth. During the past
two decades, a large number of studies on age and gender differences in self-esteem
have found that men have higher self-esteem than women and that both men and
women show age-graded increases in self-esteem. Our survey would appear to
provide a solid empirical foundation upon which researchers can develop their
understanding of the mechanisms and gender differences in self-esteem.
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 Chapter II

Literature Review

This study aimed to assess the interaction between two major self-cognitions ( self-
regard and self-critique) and depressive symptoms in early adolescence. Two-
hundred and forty-three Australian adolescents (mean age = 12.08, 52 womanlike)
polished measures of self-regard, self-critique, and depressive symptoms at start,
also roughly 12-and 24-months subsequently. Growth-curvature modeling was
applied to assess changes in the variables. Their analysis assessed whether either of
the self-cognition variables predicted depressive symptoms, or if depressive
symptoms foretold self-cognitions. Results indicated that self-review and depressive
symptoms accelerated over the time period, while self- regard dropped, and these
changes were all related. Self-review didn't vaticinate depressive symptoms, nor did
depressive symptoms foretell self- review. Self-regard and depressive symptoms
during the early adolescent period, therefore, appear to have a kindly supplemental
relation, while self- critique doesn't appear to foretell the growth of depression.
Similarly, while low self-regard does appear to have an important part in the
development of depression in this age group, it isn't precisely prophetic, nor is this
effect seen across all adversarial self-cognitions. (Gittins and Hunt, 2020)

This study was assumed to research the self-respect and academic achievement of
local and rural adolescents and to examine the gender disputations in self-regard and
academic accomplishment. Self-regard was gauged by the Self- regard questionnaire
and academic success was gauged by academic school records. The findings pointed
that there were no suggestive differences with regard to the self-esteem of rural and
local adolescents. There were revelatory differences with regard to the academic
acquirement of rural and local adolescents. local adolescents scored high in
academic success as assimilated to rural adolescents. Boys would score significantly
higher on self-regard as analogized to girls. Significant gender disputations were
established in academic accomplishment. Girls were significantly improved in
academic success as compared to boys. (Feroz Correlating, 2018)
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The aim of this study was to discover the connection between self-regard and
academic achievement in secondary academies. Considering personality and
approach, this disquisition can be deposed in clarifying correlational examination.
The issues indicated a relation between educational accomplishment with tone-
regard; high tone- regard brings about better scholarly success and the other way
round. bring down the tone- regard, educational accomplishment is more sensitive.
The issues likewise directed out that there is a huge connection between partitions of
weakness and capability with scholarly accomplishment. There is a huge association
between vulnerability and capability with scholarly achievement. (Parvaneh
Doodman, 2017 )

This study explored the relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement
amoung undergraduates of a private university in Malaysia. Also, it investigated if
there is any significant difference in self-esteem and academic achievement between
genders. A convenience sampling method was employed on 60 male and 60 female
undergraduates of TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) program. The
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Questionnaire was utilized to obtain the data on the
participants’ self-esteem and their Grade Point Average (GPA). The findings
demonstrate essential implications for students, counselors, and educators, and
suggest relevant recommendations for future research. A larger sample size should
be employed, and other important demographic variables should be explored to
examine more in-depth into this interesting field of study. (Frankie Subon, 2015)

Their study was conducted to assess self-regard and academic performance amoung
university pupils after arising of several behavioral and educational problems. A
total number of 80 pupils, 40 male students, and 40 female students were named
through an intentional sample from G.C University Faisalabad. The score of male
and female pupils was compared. It was established that there was a significant
relationship (r = 0.879, p<.01) between self-regard and academic performance. Also,
a significant difference was found between male and female pupils on self-regard
and academic performance scores, which indicates that female students have high
scores on academic performance as compared to male students and male pupils have
high scores on self-regard as compared to female pupils. (Muhammad Arshad, 2015)
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The current research examines gender differences in the self-esteem and happiness
of university students. A sample of 120 students was taken from the various
departments of university of Sargodha within the age range of 18-26 years.
Convenience sampling technique was used. Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale and
Oxford Happiness Questionnaire were individually administered to the participants.
The results suggested that the male students reported significantly higher level of
self-esteem as compared to the female university students. Moreover, the results
suggested insignificant differences in male and female student in level of happiness.
Furthermore, significant positive relationship was found between happiness and self-
esteem of students. Self-esteem is so closely associated to happiness that it could be
considered as a part of happiness. They concluded that female students are more
prone to low level of self-esteem and happiness; probably due to the reason that our
patriarchal society discourages higher education for girls. (Sadia Malik,2013)

This research is expected to study the connection between self-esteem and scholastic
accomplishment just as additional knowledge into the distinctions in self-esteem and
scholarly accomplishment amoung young men and young ladies. To recognize
whether there are contrasts in scholarly accomplishment amoung young men and
young ladies. Furthermore, for this examination, Academic accomplishment was
estimated dependent on the understudies' complete score regarding all matters which
were taken in their current and past semesters. Higher scores demonstrated that the
understudies performed well scholastically. The outcomes showed that there was a
critical (p<0.01) positive connection between self-esteem and scholarly
accomplishment. Additionally, there was a critical distinction in scholastic
accomplishment amoung young men and young ladies. Nonetheless, no huge
contrast was found in self-esteem amoung guys and females. The outcomes propose
that high self-esteem is a significant factor and reinforce the expectation of
scholastic accomplishment in understudies. (Mohammad Aryana, 2010 )

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 Chapter III

Research Methodology

Research Question

Is there any difference between self-esteem amoung the college students in regards
to gender?

Objective of the study

To know the difference in self-esteem amoung students of different categories and

know how they perceive themselves.

Hypothesis

Our hypothesis is that there is no significant difference amoung males and females
in terms of self-esteem.

(Ho). 1. There is no significant difference between the group’s males and females
with regard to self-esteem.

(Ho) 2. Males have a higher self-esteem than females.

Sampling and scaling

The sampling method used was non-probability convenience sampling. We passed

the questionnaire to random people based on ease of access. Our sample size was
200, out of which 119 people were male whereas the other 81 people were female
with varying age differences and different locations across PAN India.

Instruments

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale is a 10-item , Likert scale ,self-report measure of

global self-esteem. It consists of 10 statements : 5 positive and 5 negatives, related to
overall feelings of self-worth or self-acceptance. The items are answered on a four-
point scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
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 Chapter IV

Results and Discussion

1. Which age group do you belong to?

Fig 1

2. What is your Gender?

Fig 2

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3. On the whole, I am satisfied with myself

Fig 3

4. At times I think I am no good at all.

Fig 4

5. I feel that I have a number of good qualities.

Fig 5
xv
6. I am able to do things as well as most other people.

Fig 6

7. I feel I do not have much to be proud of.

Fig 7

8. I certainly feel useless at times.

Fig 8

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9. I feel that I'm a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others.

Fig 9

10. I wish I could have more respect for myself.

Fig 10

11. All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.

Fig 11

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12. I take a positive attitude toward myself.

Fig 12

The results obtained after calculating the independent sample T test are as follows:

13. Group Statistics

Table 1

In the table Group Statistics, the mean for males is 17.51 with a standard deviation
of 4.33 and the mean for female is 17.49 with a standard deviation of 5.00. The total
number of participants is 200 with the distribution in ratio of 119:81 for males and
females respectively.

xviii
14. Independent Sample Test(T-Test for the Equality of Means)

Table 2

An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare self-esteem amoung males

and female. “There was no significant difference in the scores for male (M=17.51,
SD=4.33) and female (M=17.49, SD=5.00) gender t (198) = -0.028, p = 0.977. The
result shows that there was no significant difference in self-esteem with respect to
gender.

Measuring the effect of esteem on males and females is of utmost importance. This
study sought to provide a preliminary indication of the differences between males
and females with regards to their self-esteem and worth. The research indicates that
the self- esteem of males' participants is almost similar to females. Previous studies
suggested that the self-esteem of males is higher than in females while a few
suggested that there might not be any significant difference. The research was on the
generic population where the percentage of responses received by women was
around 25%. We found the results of sample population of 200 respondents with the
ratio of 119 males and 81 females to have an equal estimate of self-esteem
irrespective of the gender.

xix
There may be a variety of conclusions that can be suggested on the basis of the result
that we received. This might have been due to increase of more of female role
models, increased self-awareness amoung the females or the decrease in level of
psychological and physical insecurity. Many female role-models like Anita B, Indira
Nooyi have made an such an impact that it was worked as the motivating factors for
the self-esteem development. Women are having more empowerment in today’s
world and being acknowledge for their effort and worth.

One of the positive outcomes that we received from this project was the people who
took the survey were able to realize their esteem levels and discover the issues that
they never thought they had. This survey was designed to evaluate your general level
of self-esteem and determine whether you need to work on your self-image. The
development of self-esteem is heavily influenced by their environment, that is, their
homes, neighborhoods, and schools. People with damaged self-esteem are at risk of
developing psychological and social problems, which hinders recovery from low
self-esteem. Thus, to recover low self-esteem, it is important for students to
accumulate a series of successful experiences to create a positive concept of self.
Evaluating their self-esteem can be an effective method for understanding their past
and present circumstances, and useful to treat for psychosomatic disorders.
Therefore, many of my peers and friends were able to benefit from this survey have
started working on building a better self-esteem or self-image of themselves.

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 Chapter V

Conclusion

From the above results, we observed that there wasn’t much of difference in self-
esteem amoung students irrespective of the gender (male or female) with respect to
the data acquired. No significant gender differences in this Rosenberg Self-Esteem
scale were found in our experiment. Therefore, we can conclude that self-esteem is
not affected by gender. The previous researches proved that higherself-esteem
enables us to boost our performance and push ourselves to do better in every walk of
life and face challenges confidently. So, regardless of the person being a female or
male, it plays the same crucial role in our lives. But our research reveals a bright side
of developing India as girls becoming more independent in their personal and career
choices have risen in their levels of self-esteem. This could be said so because many
researches often depicted males having higher levels of self-esteem than females.

And the major issue regarding self-esteem is that it is mostly inflicted in children
due to pressure from peers or parents or in institution. For better self-esteem in
people, there must be a major shift in the viewpoints of both parents and teachers in
terms of importance they give to excellence in studies which has become an
important ingredient of Indian culture today.

xxi
 References

 Gittins, C. B., & Hunt, C. (2020). Self-criticism and self-esteem in early

adolescence: Do they predict depression? PloS one, 15(12), e0244182.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244182

 Correlating, Feroz. (2018). Correlating Self-Esteem and Academic Outcome.

Psychology and Behavioral Science International Journal. 8.
10.19080/PBSIJ.2018.08.555733.

 Al-Doulat, Adnan. (2018). The Relationship between Self-esteem and

Academic Achievement in the Scientific Concepts and Methods of Teaching
Course amoung Female Students of the Class- Teacher at the University of
Jordan. Modern Applied Science. 12. 164. 10.5539/mas.v12n2p164.

 Subon, Frankie & Unin, Norseha & Sulaiman, Nor. (2020). Self-Esteem and
Academic Achievement: The Relationship and Gender Differences of
Malaysian University Undergraduates. IAFOR Journal of Psychology & the
Behavioral Sciences. 6. 43-54. 10.22492/ijpbs.6.1.03.

 Arshad, Muhammad & Zaidi, Syed Muhammad & Mahmood, Dr. (2015).
Self-Esteem & Academic Performance amoung University Students. Journal
of Education and Practice. 6. 2015.

 Mohammad, Aryana. (2010). Relationship Between Self-esteem and

Academic Achievement Amongst Pre-University Students. Journal of
Applied Sciences. 10. 10.3923/jas.2010.2474.2477.

 Dr. Suparna Jain, Ms. Prerna Dixit (2014): Self Esteem: A Gender Based
Comparison and the Causal Factors Reducing It amoung Indian Youth , 2014

 Sadia Malik , Sadia Department of Psychology, University of Sargodha,

Sargodha, Pakistan: Gender differences in self-esteem and happiness amoung
university students, 2013

 Parvaneh Doodman , Mojgan Amirian Zadeh , Bahador Changizi : Study the

xxii
 Relationship between Self-Esteem and Academic Achievement amoung
High School Students in Lamerd City, 2017

 Rajesh Kumar* & Beenu Varma: ACADEMIC INTEREST AND SELF

ESTEEM: A STUDY ON GENDER DIFFERENCES AMONG
ADOLESCENTS , 2018

xxiii
 APPENDIX

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965)

The scale is a ten item Likert scale with items answered on a four-point scale - from
strongly agree to strongly disagree. The original sample for which the scale was
developed consisted of 5,024 High School Juniors and Seniors from 10 randomly
selected schools in New York State.

Instructions: Below is a list of statements dealing with your general feelings about
yourself. If you strongly agree, circle SA. If you agree with the statement, circle A.
If you disagree, circle D. If you strongly disagree, circle SD.

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale Questionnaire

1. On the whole, I am satisfied with myself.

2.* At times, I think I am no good at all.

3. I feel that I have a number of good qualities.

4. I am able to do things as well as most other people.

5.* I feel I do not have much to be proud of.

6.* I certainly feel useless at times.

7. I feel that I’m a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others.

8.* I wish I could have more respect for myself.

9.* All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.

10. I take a positive attitude toward myself.

xxiv