Interpersonal Relationships among College Students: an Assessment

Developing and maintaining interpersonal relationship is important for success in life. Interpersonal relationship serves as a base for social support that plays a crucial role particularly in emotionally charged situations. It is also noted that interpersonal relationship enhances overall wellbeing of man. The present study is done to find out how students behave and what kind of behavior they expect from others. For this purpose, FIRO – B questionnaire developed by Schultz (1958) was used with a sample of 200 college students who were selected through stratified random sampling method from two colleges in Salem city. The strata used in this study are gender, discipline and order of birth. The collected data were analyzed using t-test that revealed significant gender difference in expressed inclusion and wanted control dimensions of interpersonal relationship. Further, arts discipline students significantly differed from science discipline students in wanted control. There was a significant difference in expressed inclusion and wanted affection based on order of birth of the students.