Personal Strivings as Markers of Adolescents’ Quality of Life: a Gender Based Study

Adolescence is a very complex and crucial phase of life, where teenagers are caught up in their own web of personal strivings, such as the issues of being, belonging and becoming. Such strivings play a pivotal role in determining their quality of life. Further whether these intrinsic motives (i.e. 3Bs being, belonging and becoming) are being influenced by gender stereotypes is a big issue for the psychologists to explore. Thus the current study is an attempt to explore and compare the levels of being, belonging and becoming (comprising of overall QOL) among male and female adolescents. A purposive sample of 98 adolescents aged 16-18 years, both male (n=44) and female (n=54) was drawn from the colleges of Rewari and Gurgaon districts of Haryana. For measuring personal strivings, Quality Of Life Profile for Adolescent Version Questionnaire (Raphael, Rukholm, Brown, Hill-Bailey & Donato, 1996) was used. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to assess the levels of being, belonging and becoming and overall quality of life and gender comparison was done on these variables. Results indicated adequate level of personal strivings leading to overall good quality of life among adolescents (total as well as in both male and female separately). Both males and females have similar levels of quality of life. However, females superseded males in spiritual being and community belonging.