A Study of Mental Health of School Students in Relation totheir Personality                   Dr.

V. B. Gohil        AssistantProfessor & Head,Shree V. M. Sakariya Mahila Arts College,                 Botad ( Gujarat)     Abstract:-  Thisresearch paper is an to study the relationship between  mental health and different dimensions ofpersonality of school students.

The population of the study comprised of governmentschool students of Gujarat. To collect the sample of the present study 300school students were randomly selected from three districts of Gujarat namelyAhemdavad , Bhavnagar and Botad based on the literacy levels (high, average andlow). The sample comprised of 150 male and 150 female students. The mentalhealth and personality were measured by Mental Health Check List (1992) byPramod Kumar. And Eysenck’s Personality Questionaire- Revised (EPQ-R) 1975 byEysenck. The relationship between mental health and personality of schoolstudents was explored by using product moment correlation (r). The table 1shows the coefficient of correlation between mental health and dimensions ofpersonality of school students.

KeyWords: Mental Health, Personality, Adolescents,Gender Full  Research Paper ·       Introduction:In the present era, knowledge explosion is enteringinto various streams through the applications of technology. It has broughtlots of new technologies and researches into existence which has contributed toman’s development through education. In this competitive world, students face alot of stress which hinders their mental health and personality. Mental health refers to ourcognitive and emotional wellbeing. It is all about how we think, feel andbehave. According to World Health Organization (2007) mental health is not just the absence of mental disorder. Mentalhealth is a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her ownpotential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively andfruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. Mental health of a person among other thingsis concerned with the sense of growth and development, personality andadjustment, success and happiness, effective membership of group or community.

Personalityrefers to the total pattern or configuration of all qualities of body, mind andbehaviour. Personality is to man, what perfume is to a flower. Thus personalityis innate in man. It cannot be separated from him.                         In concise it is theresult of lifelong experiences and surroundings. Shah (2009) referred personality to all what is unique about anindividual that is the characteristics that makes one stand out in a crowd.

Personality is the sum total of individual’s psychological traits,characteristics, motives, habits, attitudes, beliefs and outlooks. Friend etal. (2007) viewed personality as a mirror of individual’s behaviour.Personality and mental health have a relationship which shows the effect ofmental health on individual’s personality. One of the important criteria ofgood mental health is integration of personality. If the child knows how tobalance his psychic forces, understands himself and share other people’semotional ability to concentrate at work task he will face no personality andmental problems. Presence and absence of mental health will automatically alterthe appearance and expression of personality traits. Singh and Agnihotri (2013) examined therelationship between mental health and self-confidence of 600 tenth classstudents of Gujarat.

It was found that majority of adolescents had averagelevel of mental health and self-confidence. But a positive significantrelationship exists between mental health and self-confidence of secondaryschool students. Sethi and Kapoor (2013)explored the relationship between mental health and adjustment of 200 studentsstudying in IX class of Ludhiana. The results revealed a positive relationbetween mental health and adjustment of students. Singh (2012) studied therelationship between personality and mental health of school students of Patialadistrict. The study revealed that male and female students had significantdifference on extraversion and neuroticism dimensions of personality, whereasthere was no significant difference on psychoticism dimension of personality.Negative relationship between neuroticism and psychoticism dimension ofpersonality and mental health was found.

 Shirazi et al. (2012)examined the relationship between mental health and personality characteristicsamong three hundred students from Aligarh. The result showed there wassignificant relationship between mental health and personality characteristics.It also found agreeableness, neuroticism and openness as significant predictorsof mental health. There was no significant difference of professional andnon-professional students’ mental health and personality characteristics interms of gender.  Rahmaniet al.

(2012) explored the gender differences in five factor model ofpersonality and sensation seeking one hundred seventy seven undergraduatestudents (108 female and 69 male) from University of Tehran. The findingsindicated that girls showed significantly higher scores on openness andagreeableness compared with boys. Moreover, sensation seeking of boys wassignificantly different from girls.

Male students showed significantly higherscores on subscales of thrill and adventure seeking, disinhibition and boredomsusceptibility than female students. ·       Objective Ø  Tostudy the relationship between mental health and different dimensions ofpersonality of school students. ·       Hypothesis Ø  Thereis no significant relationship between mental health and different dimensionsof personality of school students.

 Ø  Mental Health: MentalHealth is an index which shows the extent to which person has been able to meethis environmental elements- social, emotional or physical. It helps inidentifying person with poor mental health in need of psycho diagnostic help usmeasured by Mental Health Checklist (Pramod Kumar, 1992).Ø  Personality: Personalityis more or less stable and enduring organization of person’s characters,temperament, intellect and physique which determine his unique adjustment tohis environment which includes three dimensions: Psychoticism, Extraversion andNeuroticism as measured by Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire Revised(Eysenck, 1975).Ø  Psychoticism:They are solitary, troublesome, cruel, lacking in feeling and empathy, hostileto others, sensation seeking and liking odd and unusual things.

Ø  Extraversion:They are out going, uninhibited, sociable proclivities person.Ø  Neuroticism:Refers to general emotional liability of a person, his emotional overresponsiveness and his liability to neurotic breakdown under stress. ·       Delimitation Only students of ninth class of government schoolsof Gujarat state were included in the study. ·       SampleThe population of the study comprised of government school students ofGujarat.

To collect the sample of the present study 300 school students wererandomly selected from three districts of Gujarat namely Ahemdavad, Bhavnagarand Botad based on the literacy levels (high, average and low). The samplecomprised of 150 male and 150 female students.