a study of psychosocial adjustment among blind and sighted subjects

A STUDY OF PSYCHOSOCIAL ADJUSTMENT  AMONG BLIND AND  SIGHTED CHILDRENS.       MAHE NAZ*AND SAEEDUZZAFAR** DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY ALIGARH  MUSLIM UNIVERSITY,ALIGARH.     The term psychosocial refers to one’s psychological development in  an interaction with a social envirornment.The individual is not necessarily fully aware of this relationship with his or her environment.It was first commonly used by psychologist, Eric Erikson in his stages of development.The term psychosocial can be used to describe the unique internal processes that occur within the individual.   The concept of adjustment is old as human race on earth.Systematic emergence of this concept starts from Darvin.In those days the concept was purely biological and he used the term adaptation.   Adjustment may be defined as a continuous interaction with one self, with other people,and with the world. These three factors are constantly acting upon and influencing one’s life.   Participation in organized or informal group activity is a test of an individual’s power to adjust his own attitudes and interests to the interest, needs, or rights of other people. His interest in community welfare and is cooperative attitude toward community projects are as important as is the exercise of similar interest and attitudes in home and work relationships. In all these associations a person experiences many problems of adjustment that become increasingly serious as group, needs and interests change with changing conditions.   Community problems that demand intelligent leadership and citizen cooperation include safety regulations, recreational facilities, health protection, adequate transportation . Community well-being is dependent not only upon the provision of these environmental conditions, but also upon displayed attitude and the behaviour of community members.Good individual or group adjustment can be hindered by frequent occurrences of a social acts committed by some of the group members. Accounts of burglaries, muggings, assaults, reckless driving, heavy drinking, fights, and illicit sex relations are featured in the daily newspapers.Apprehension of offenders and prevention of antisocial behaviour constitute important areas of community concern.   The foregoing discussion reveals the significance and importance of  psychosocial adjustment in our social life. A person who is well adjusted in various spheres of life is highly successful in the domain of life.He is not only capable to maintain cordial relationship with members of various segments of the society but is also highly successful in his vocational life.Since our adjustment in the various aspects of life is dependent to a great extent on our sensory receptors like eyes, nose, ears, tongue and skin, it is logical to assume that blind individuals who are deprived of one of the most important sensory organ i.e. eye, are likely to develop relatively poor adjustment in different areas of life as compared to sighted individuals.This assumption gain strength  from the fact that mobility of blind individuals is reduced to a great extent which in turn may affect their social interactions with other individuals in the societyThe present study is basically designed to test this assumption. moreover it would also be interesting to explore the adjustment of blind individuals in other areas of life and to compare them with the sighted individuals.Thus the present study also addressed this issue.   The findings of present investigation will not only enable us to understand the adjustment problems of the blind individuals but also will help us in identifying the areas of life in which blind individuals are found maladjusted. Further more, the findings of the study will also provide a fertile ground for recommending the ways and means by which maladjustment among blind individuals may be removed if they were found .     METHODOLOGY                                    Specifically the present study was undertaken to answer the following question:   1.do blind and sighted subjects differ with respect to psychosocial adjustment in the area of home?   2.do blind and sighted subjects differ with respect to psychosocial adjustment in the area of school?   3.do blind and sighted subjects differ with respect to psychosocial adjustment in terms  of quality  relationships?   4.do blind and sighted subjects differ with respect to psychosocial adjustment in terms of confidence level?   5.do blind and sighted subjects differ with respect of psychosocial adjustment in terms of suppressed emotions?   6. do blind and sighted  subjects differ with respect  of psychosocial adjustment in terms of perceived stress?    7.do blind and sighted subjects differ with respect to psychosocial adjustment  in terms of perceived health?   8.do blind and sighted subjects differ with respect to psychosocial adjustment as a whole?   Design of the study:          In order to study the psychosocial adjustment of subjects in these seven areas of adjustment ,a  sample of 60 subjects was taken. Half of them were blind subjects and half of them were sighted subjects that means two groups were formed, in one group sighted subjects were randomly selected of  age ranging between 12-17,in other group 30 blind subjects were randomly selected of the same age group. Two randomized group design was used. Thus subjects were randomly assigned to two groups.   Sample:        To study the psychosocial adjustment of subjects, a sample of 60 (30sighted and 30 blind) school students were randomly selected from the Ahmadi blind school Aligarh and from Union Public school, Aligarh. The age of the subjects ranged from 12 to 17 years. Two groups were formed. Adjustment questionnaires was administered separately on both the groups.   Tools:   Psychosocial adjustment questionnaire:        This psychosocial adjustment scale was developed by prof.Akbar Hussain. This scale measures various aspects of an individual related to adjustment.It consist of seven areas and each area carries different number of statements:   1.at home-9 statements   2.at school-4 statements   3.quality of relationships-6 statements   4.confidence-5 statements   5.supressed emotions-4 statements   6.percieved stress-4 statements   7.percieved health-4 statements      there are in total 36 statements, subjects are required to respond in terms of true or false.          In this scale all the items were not uniformly scored as certain items were scored reversely while others were not. for example, in the first area“at home”item no.8 was scored reversly that is for false one point is given while for true 0 is given,while rest of the items in the area were scored as 1 point was given for true response.so in this area high score reveals that subject is high psychosocial adjustment in home.           In the second area“at school”,all the items are scored in reversed order,that is false-1,true-0,if subject scored high in this area it means he is maladjusted in school.            In the third and fourth area “|quality of relationship and  confidence”the scoring system is similar to second area.thus in these areas if the subject scored low,it means he has shown adequate level of adjustment in terms of quality of relationship and confidence.             In the fifth area “suppressed emotion”item no.2 is reversed scored where are remaining items are not.If subject scores low, that means subject’s emotions are not suppressed, he is properly adjusted in terms of expressing emotion.             In the sixth area “perceived stress”,item no.3 is reversed scored,if the subjects scores high in this area, it means he is under stress, therefore he shows maladjustment.            In the seventh area, “perceived health”,item no.1,2 are reversed score. If subject scores 2 for first two questions and scores zero for last two questions, he has good mental and physical health while if he scores zero for last two items, he has poor mental and physical health.   Data collection:         In order to answer the above mentioned questions, the adjustment inventory was administered on two groups of subjects namely blind and sighted subjects.         Following instructions were given, “are going to administer a test on you. The test will reveal interesting facts about your psychosocial adjustment. At the very outset, we assure you that the informations provided by you will be kept strictly confidential. Since this test is a part of our research work, your cooperation is required.        The test consist of seven areas which consist of certain no. of statements, each statement has two alternatives responses, true or false. Please read each statement carefully and mark a tick mark on any one of the responses that appears to you most appropriate one. Please remember that there is no right and wrong answer. You are simply required to select one of the alternative responses for each statement that fits best with your present conditions. Though there is no time limit for completing this test but try to complete the test as soon as possible. Please do not leave any statement unanswered.       The above instructions were given only to sighted subjects only.       While in case of blind subjects, each and every statement of the questionnaire was loudly readout by the experimenter, and subject responded verbally in yes or no and the experimenter marked a tick accordingly. Each and every statement was clearly explained by the experimenter and if needed translated to the blind subjects, so that they can get better understanding of the item of the scale.        As soon as the subjects completed the test, questionnaires were collected and scoring was done according to the scoring system of the test. Total was done by adding the scores of seven areas for each subject. The data obtained in this fashion were tabulated and analyzed by using t- test,in order to draw necessary inferences.   Interpretation of the result   As mentioned earlier the present study was designed to investigate psychosocial adjustment among blind and sighted subjects the hypothesis of the study were framed in the form of questions given in the methodology.   Table 1 Showing mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects in the area of home and t-value   group mean t-value blind 4.33 0.16 sighted 4.77                          Table 2 Showing mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects in the area of school and t-value   group mean t-value blind 1.57 0.20 sighted 1.87                                                                         Table 3 Showing mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects in the area of quality of relationships and t-value   group mean t-value blind 0.66 0.68 sighted 1.23                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Table 4 Showing mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects in the area of confidence and t-value     group mean t-value blind 1.33 0.30 sighted 1.36                   Table 5  Showing mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects in the area of suppressed emotions and t-value     group mean t-value blind 1.93 0.16 sighted 1.73                                                                                                                                                Table 6  Showing mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects in the area of perceived stress and t-value     group mean t-value blind 1.76 0.66 sighted 1.13                   Table 7  Showing mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects in the area of perceived health and   t-value   group mean t-value blind 1.00 0.26 sighted 1.26                   Table 8                                                                                                                                                         Showing mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects on psychosocial adjustment as a whole and t-value                                                                                                                                                          group mean t-value blind 12.96 0.53 sighted 13.46                                                                                                                        Discusssion                  As mentioned in methodology, the present study was undertaken to investigate psychosocial adjustment of blind and sighted subjects in eight areas of adjustment namely home, school, quality of relationship, confidence, suppressed emotion, perceived stress, perceived health as well as psychosocial adjustment of blind and sighted subjects as a whole.   The first finding of the present study revealed that blind and sighted subjects do not differ with respects to home adjustment.   Though a trend has been observed that blind subjects are slightly poorly adjusted in the area of home as compared to sighted subjects but  this trend was not found statistically significant (ref.table-1).This finding is contrary to our expectations. As a matter of fact blind subjects are unfortunately deprived of one of the most important sense i.e. vision, it was, therefore, expected that blinds should face difficulties in making adjustment in their homes as compared to sighted individuals. However the first finding of our study did not provide empirical support to our expectations. Such an unexpected finding may be due to two important factors. First we have used very small sample in our study and secondly even among blind subjects, there were few subjects who are not totally blind. These two factors may be responsible for the present findings i.e. blind and sighted children’s do not differ with respect to home adjustment.   The second finding of the study is that the blind and sighted subjects do not differ with respect to adjustment in school. A perusal of table-2 reveals quite interesting trend to the fact that blind subjects are slightly better adjusted than sighted subjects in the area of school, though this trend is not statistically significant. Here it may be assumed that if the study is carried out on large sample of blind and sighted subjects the insignificant trend in favour of blind subjects may be changed into significant one. In other words if the same study is carried out on large sample it may be found that blind subjects are significantly better adjusted in school environment as compared to sighted individuals, if such finding is obtained it would be quite feasible. It is an open secret that in a school environment blind individuals get more sympathy and social support from everyone including the teachers as compared to sighted individuals. Thus this extra sympathy and social support may be responsible for making blind subjects better adjusted as compared to sighted individuals. There are numerous studies which have clearly demonstrated that social support has beneficial effect on health.(Cohen and Wills, 1985;Pillisuk, Boylan and Acredole, 1987; O’Heeron, 1987; Pennebaker and Beall, 1986;Costanza, Derlefla and Winsted, 1988;Smit, Smoll and Ptacek, 1990).Since social support,as demonstrated by the above researchers,has beneficial effect on health,it is very logical to assume that social support should have a facilitating effect on adjustment.The second finding of our study though not statistically significant may be explained in terms of social support.          The third finding of the present investigation reveals that the mean score obtained by blind subjects in the area of quality of relationship is 0.66 whereas the mean score obtained by sighted subjects is 1.23.Since the mean score obtained by sighted subjects is quite lower than the mean score obtained by sighted subjects, it may therefore be suggested that blind subjects are better adjusted in terms of quality of relationship as compared to sighted subjects. However t-test revealed that blind and sighted subjects do not differ with respect to quality of relationship. In other words the trend which is found by comparing the two means is not statistically significant. The trend in favor of blind subjects i.e., maintained better quality of relationship with others may be explained in terms of sensory deprivation. Blind subjects who are deprived of vision. They are not able to see many of the evils of others and therefore may remain unaware of malafied nonverbal actions of others. This mechanism may be responsible for better quality of relationship maintained by blind subjects. Sighted subjects, on the other hand are capable of seeing the malafied actions of others and therefore they react the same way resulting into break up of relationships. Thus there is high probability that the trend observed in our study may become statistically significant if large sample of subjects is used in the future research.          The fourth finding of the present investigation i.e., blind and sighted subjects do not differ with respect to confidence is not only surprising but also raises critical questions which pose a challenge to the researchers. Since blind subjects are deprived of one of the most important sense i.e., vision, It was expected that blind subjects would show less confidence as compared to sighted subjects. The finding of our study is not in consonance with this expectation. At this stage we are not able to give a satisfactory explanation of our finding except to suggest extensive research on this issue.           Like previous findings, the fifth finding also shows that blind and sighted subjects do not statistically differ with respect to suppressed emotions. However a comparison of the mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects (Ref.table-5)points a trend to the effect that blind subjects suppress their emotions more than sighted subjects. Such a trend obtained in our finding is too obvious to explain. Being blind is certainly a great adversity for a human being. Such an individual is not only deprived of colorful life of the world but also his freedom in performing various activities is also curtailed to a great extend. In such a sorry state of affairs a blind individual has no option except to suppress his emotions otherwise his life would become a crown of thorns. This is exactly in accordance to the defense mechanism given by Sigmund Freud. In a way the trend observed in our fifth finding provides some what empirical support to the defense mechanism i.e., repression. Further research is certainly needed to strengthen this contention.         While comparing the mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects in the area of perceived stress (Ref.table-6), it may be observed that blind subjects are more susceptible to stress than sighted subjects. Though the difference between the two means obtained by blind and sighted subjects is not statistically significant but the magnitude of difference between the means is a good indicator to this direction. Thus the sixth finding of our study throws light-a dim light, on internal state of the blind subjects. It is interesting to note that even a normal individual closes his eyes for a few minutes he starts perceiving more stress. It is therefore but natural that the blind individuals whose eyes are closed forever may suffer from immense perceived stress.         The sixth finding of our study provides empirical evidence-though weak, to this process.        The seventh finding of the present investigation i.e, blind and sighted subjects do not differ with respect of perceived health, is again inconsistent with our expectation. It was assumed that blind subjects would perceive themselves in poorer health as compared to sighted subjects. This assumption was based on the operational definition of physical health which states that a person is physically healthy if his all organs are normal and functioning normally. In the light of this definition of health blind individuals may not be perceived as healthy as sighted individuals. However this logical assumption could not get an empirical support. However again if we compare the mean scores obtained by blind and sighted subjects in this area of adjustment we find that mean score obtained by blinds subjects is highly lower than the mean scores obtained by sighted subjects(see table-3).        As in this area of adjustment scoring of some of the items was done in reversed order therefore lower the score the poorer the subject on perceived health. Thus a trend may gain be observed which is in consonance with our assumption stated above. It is hoped that the same study is carried out on large sample than the findings may provide strong empirical support to our assumption.       The eight and last finding, in which blind and sighted subjects were compared on adjustment as a whole (All the seven areas were taken together), reveals that blind and sighted subjects do not differ in their psychosocial adjustment in other words both groups of subjects are equally adjusted. Referring table-8, we however,  find that mean score obtained by blind subjects on the psychosocial adjustment questionnaire is slightly lower than the mean score obtained by sighted subjects. comparing by these two means it becomes evident that blind subjects are slightly more adjusted as a whole as compared to sighted subjects though difference is not statistically significant. Thus a trend may be observed (Ref.table-8) in favor of blind subjects. This trend is against to our expectations. The trend to the effect that blind subjects have an edge over sighted subjects on psychosocial adjustment may be explained by psychodynamic theory of adjustment. Thus it may be possible that blind subjects may use defense mechanism more extensively and rigorously as compared to sighted individuals. By using defense mechanism blind subjects are more capable to overcome their anxieties and stress which is turn prepare a fertile ground for blind subjects to become better adjusted as compared to their counterpart.         The pattern of various findings of the present study forces us to recommend that a more extensive study especially with quite large sample of subjects should be conducted to remove certain ambiguities observed in our study.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         References     Cohen,S.,and Ashby-Wills,T.(1985).stress and social support and the buffering hypothesis,psychological bulletin,98,310-357.   Costanza,R.S.,Derlefla,V.J.and Winstead,B.A.(1998).positive and negative forms of social support:Effects of conversation topics on coping with stress among same sex friends.journal of experimental social psychology.,24,182-193.   Crow,L.D.psychology of human adjustment,New York,Alfred A.Kropf.   Gorlow,L.,Reading in psychology of adjustment,New York.Mcgraw Hill Book (1946).   Jourard,S.M.,Personal Adjustment:An Approach to the study of healthy personality,New York Macmillan (11nd edition)1963.   Pandey,J.Adjustment problems of adolescents in relation to their personality variables,unpublished Ph.D.Thesis Varanasi,B.H.U.1968.   Patty,W.L.,and Johnson,L.S.,Personality and adjustment New York, London;3,1953.   Pennebaker,J.W.and Beall,S.(1968).Confronting a traumatic event toward an understanding of inhibition and disease.Journal of Abnormal Psychology.95,274-281.   Pilisuk,M.,Boylan,R.,and Arcedolo,C.(1987).Social support,life stress,and subsequent medical care utilization.Health Psychology,6,273-277.   Shukla,T.R.,and Mishra,J.P,Socioeconomic status in relation to adjustment problem anmong school going children,Indian journal of clinical psychology,1980.   Smith,H.C.,Personality Adjustment,New York,McGraw-Hill,1961.   Smith,R.E;Smoll,F.L.and Ptacek,IT.(1980).conjuctive moderator variables in vulnerability and resiliency research:life stress social support and coping skills.and adolescent spot enjunes.Journal of Personality and social psychology,58,360-370.