THE ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL in MENTAL HEALTH WELLBEING AND ACADEMIC BEHAVIOUR OF ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

The study was carried out to examine the role of psychological capital (PsyCap) in the psychological wellbeing, mental health, and positive academic behaviors of adolescents. Arising from the review of literature, the study was dealt with in two parts. In the first part, the nature of development in each of the PsyCap attributes and Ryff s wellbeing factors among the adolescent groups relating to gender and stream of study were examined. In this part of the study, eight hundred college students including boys and girls of both arts and science stream from all the five different grades participated. With regard to the development of PsyCap attributes during the college years, both gender and stream of study were found to have significant impacts. Further, with respect to the level of development, the groups had moderately high development in some attributes, having moderately low development in other attributes, which were not also similar across the groups. For example, girls in both arts and science stream were found to have uniformly higher development in resilience, while boys were better in hope and optimism among arts students, but not among science students. However, although the nature and rate of development of different PsyCap attributes varied across the groups, each of the attributes was found to have developed during the college years and mostly the developments were newline