The experience of wellness in early adulthood: a multicultural perspective

[摘要] Afrikaans: Young adults experience a considerable amount of strain from the tasks that presentthemselves during this stage of development. At the same time, contemporary studiesfail to incorporate the effect of this strain on the young adult's sense of psychologicalwellness. While the nature of psychological wellness remains controversial to define,certain core dimensions exist. Ryff (1989) articulated six dimensions under theumbrella of the structure of wellness, namely self-acceptance, positive relations withothers, self-determination, environmental mastery, purpose in life and personalgrowth. Studies on young adults' interaction with the developmental tasks that presentthemselves during this stage of development and the ultimate influence on theseadults' wellness in the South African context have, as yet, received little attention.The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which the roles of intimacy, asense of belonging and occupation influence the experience of wellness in earlyadulthood. Differences between race and gender were also investigated. A sample of150 working adults from different ethnic groups was included in this study (non experimentalprospective design). Further criteria included that the adults had to bebetween the ages of 22 and 33 with a minimum educational level of grade 11. TheMultidimensional Wellness Scale (Ryff & Keyes, 1995) was used to measurewellness as the criterion variable while the Hope Scale (Snyder et al, 1991), FortitudeScale (Pretorius, 1997), Work and Life Experience Questionnaire (Van Zyl & Van derWalt, 1991) and Self-efficacy Scale (Sherer et al., 1982) were used to measure thepredictor variables. A self compiled biographical questionnaire was used to obtainbiographical information. From the hierarchical regression analysis, statistically andpractically significant results were obtained for the entire group. The predictorvariables explained between 72.52% and 79.57% of the variance in the levels ofwellness for the total group. Furthermore, the predictor variables explain 79.57% ofthe variance in the levels of wellness of young black adults, 72.52% of young whiteadults, 77.28% of young female adults and 72.66% of young male adults. A sense ofhope was found to be a consistently significant contributing factor in the experienceof wellness for all groups. While hope was found to be the strongest predictor of thelevel of wellness of the participants, stressors outside the work situation, stressorswithin the work situation as well as general self-efficacy and social self-efficacy alsomade significant contributions. Furthermore, significant differences in the experienceof psychological wellness were found between both races as well as between the twogenders.

[发布机构] University of the Free State