Interdisciplinary View into Optimism and Pessimism in Emic Perspective

Abstract

The tradition of research of optimism and pessimism is very popular nowadays, but the past decades had offered a string of very interesting access into this phenomenon as within separate cultures so on the plan of crosscultural comparisons. The aim of this research was to establish to which extent the different variables describing the style and lifestyle of students in Bosnia and Herzegovina are connected with the level of optimism / pessimism. In that regard, beside the general information on examinees, the differences regarding sex, evaluation of parental control dimensions and emotionality (family status), the level of empathy, intercultural sensibility, and the resistance and or the inclination to depressive, anxious conditions and stress, had been affirmed. An interdisciplinary approach dominated in this research (connecting the knowledge from pedagogy, psychology, sociology) relevant for the question of optimism/pessimism, as well as emic perspective, a perspective of view from within in research of one culture a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods. The empiric part of research has covered the sample comprising of 457 examinees, students of the Universities of Zenica and University of Sarajevo with total of 9 faculties covering technical, scientific, social and humanistic sciences. The results had confirmed some of previously obtained both theoretical and empiric thesis on connection of optimism / pessimism with family background, level of empathy, intercultural sensitivity and preference of examinees' lifestyles.

Youth Culture Features in the Light of Preferred Role Models and Life Styles

“…Descriptions of these lifestyles provide a broad framework of understanding current trends among youth, especially within the student population. In comparison to other surveys conducted in neighbouring countries, the results of our research show dramatic changes in terms of preferenced lifestyles 1 .…”

“…shows the obtained distribution of results. 1 For comparison purposes, in their research on a sample of 237 examinees, high school students in Bitola, Mladenovska-Dimitrovska and Dimitrovska (2015), they used the same scale and got a completely different ranking of life styles: among the high school students in Bitola, the most preferred lifestyle was family -sentimental style, then utilitarian, followed by egoistic and hedonistic orientation. Minimum preferred lifestyles in this research were: orientation to popularity, orientation to power and a cognitive lifestyle.…”

“…This research is characterised by an interdisciplinary approach, through insights into different of scientific fields relevant to researches in culture, social pedagogy and psychology. The research is a continuation of the research in which we, on the same sample, separately considered the optimism and the pessimism among the students (Alić, Cerić and Habibović, 2018). At the same time, the results on this sample were compared with the results of the study of lifestyles and empathy of students collected on the other sample three years ago (Alić, Cerić and Habibović, 2015).…”

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“…The research conducted by Veenhoven (2007;after Rijavec et al, 2008, p.83) has shown that happiness is not merely individual private matter but it depends on numerous social factors, since the happiness of westerners is connected with a sequence of factors depicting the level of social justice achieved, such as: political and economic freedom, obeying the law, human rights, women' rights, low level of corruption and personal freedom. In our researches in the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Alić, Cerić and Habibović, 2013, 2015, 2017a, 2017b,2017c it was shown as in regard to evaluation of personal life satisfaction a level of empathy, the way of building up of social relations, sensitivity and social distance toward the others (in inter-group and outer-group relations), a family functionality, parental style / dominant behaviour examinees are exposed to, and preference of life styles have significant impact.…”

“…Comparative examinations of happiness started in 60s of previous century and they are able to be found in World Database of Happiness 1 . According to last comparative data, among the happiest nations are Danish, Columbians.…”