Relationship between Gunas and Mental Health, Flourishing, Positive and Negative Experience: An Indian and Western Perspective

SINGH, Kamlesh and Alena SLEZÁČKOVÁ. Relationship between Gunas and Mental Health, Flourishing, Positive and Negative Experience: An Indian and Western Perspective. In 2. mezinárodní konference pozitivní psychologie v ČR, Brno, 22.-24.5.2013. 2013. ISBN 978-80-210-6235-1.

Basic information

Original name

Relationship between Gunas and Mental Health, Flourishing, Positive and Negative Experience: An Indian and Western Perspective

Authors

SINGH, Kamlesh (356 India) and Alena SLEZÁČKOVÁ (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution)

Edition

2. mezinárodní konference pozitivní psychologie v ČR, Brno, 22.-24.5.2013, 2013

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Other information

Language

English

Type of outcome

Konferenční abstrakt

Field of Study

50100 5.1 Psychology and cognitive sciences

Country of publisher

Czech Republic

Confidentiality degree

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

References:

URL

RIV identification code

RIV/00216224:14210/13:00068557

Organization unit

Faculty of Arts

ISBN

978-80-210-6235-1

Keywords in English

mental health; flourishing; Vedic personality; university students

Tags

rivok

Tags

International impact, Reviewed

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Abstract

V originále

The present research aims to study the Eastern concept of Vedic personality traits comprising of Gunas- Sattva, Rajas and Tamas in relation to Mental Health, Flourishing, Positive and Negative Experience in Czech students. A sample of 353 university students (pertaining to diverse professional disciplines) was selected, consisting of 286 females and 67 males. The age range of the sample was between 19 to 30 years with mean age of 22.2 years. The Mental Health Continuum - Short Form (MHC-SF; Keyes, 2009), Flourishing Scale and Scale of Positive and Negative Experience SPANE (Diener, Wirtz, Tov, Kim-Prieto, Choi, Oishi, & Biswas-Diener, 2009) and Vedic Personality Inventory (VPI; Wolf, 1998) were used in this research. VPI is based on the three gunas which according to the Das Gupta (1961) are ‘the universal characteristics of all kinds of mental tendencies’. These gunas facilitate the behavior style of an individual. Descriptive statistics was used for data analysis. The results revealed significant correlations between specific Vedic Personality Gunas and other variables of interest. Significant positive relationships between Sattva guna (symbolized by purity, wisdom, serenity, love of knowledge and spiritual excellence in Indian philosophy) with Emotional well-being (r = 0.44); Psychological well-being (r = 0.44); Social well-being (r = 0.60); Flourishing (r = 0.67); Positive Experience (r = 0.49) at 0.01 significance level and negatively correlated with Negative Experience (r = - 0.39) were obtained. In contrast, Rajas (which is symbolized by egoism, activity, restlessness and desire after mundane things) and Tamas (related to qualities such as bias, negligence, distortion in taste, thought) were negatively correlated with all well-being indicators except negative experience which is positively correlated. Results of the study point at interesting connections between Indian and Western holistic approach to understand well-being and its indicators.