The
Relationship of Self-Control to Psychological Health and Social
Desirability: Toward the Development of Normative Scales for a
Clinical Assessment Inventory Based on a Control Model of Health
D.H. Shapiro, Jr |
Both
Eastern and Western psychologies have a view of what constitutes
the psychologically healthy person. Further, both place considerable
emphasis on concepts of control and self-control. In previous research,
a four quadrant inventory was developed in order to better understand
and differentiate the nature of control used in the different traditions,
as well as how well these quadrants represented concepts of psychological
health. In this study an effort was made to look at the relationship
of self-control and psychological health. Over two thousand individuals
(the majority in the health and healing professions) in eleven United
States cities, described how well these quadrants reflected either
self-control, psychological health or social desirability for a person,
man or woman. Profile scores for high psychological health and high
self control were generated; cluster analysis and two-way analysis
of variance revealed that the inventory, as expected, significantly
differentiated profiles of individuals with high and low self-control
and high and low psychological health. In terms of self-control,
the data supported previous findings of positive and negative valence
associated with self-control. The data also revealed a cultural bias,
in that positive assertive (quadrant one) was seen as significantly
more a sign of self control, high psychological health and social
desirability than positive yielding (quadrant two); and quadrant
three (negative assertive) was similarly seen as significantly more
a sign of self-control, high psychological health and social desirability
than quadrant four (negative yielding). There were also several examples
of sex role bias, e. g. quadrant two (positive yielding) was seen
by all respondents as significantly more socially desirable for men
than women. The implications of these findings are discussed, both
in terms of developing a control model of psychological health; and
as a major cornerstone for proposed normative scales that may be
used as a clinical assessment inventory in matching self-control
strategy to an individual with a particular problem. Guidelines and
suggestions for further research are offered.
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