Personality Traits, Self-Esteem, Self-Efficacy And Smoking Behavior Among Male Medical Students

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Ahmed Bilal , Huma Hassan , Zahra Qureshi

Abstract

The present study investigated the relationship among personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness), self-esteem and self-efficacy between three types of smoking behavior (smokers, non-smokers and experimental smokers). It was hypothesized that there was likely to be a relationship and differences between personality traits, self-esteem, self-efficacy and three types of smoking behavior (smokers, non-smokers and experimental smokers) in male medical students. Correlational (cross-sectional) research design and purposive sampling were used in the present study. The sample was comprised of 452 males, (N=452) including 209 smokers (n=209), 171 non-smokers (n=171) and 72 experimental smokers (n=72) from medical universities of Lahore, with age range of 18-27 years. Smoking Behavior Assessment (SBA; World Health Organization, 1998; Kaplan, Napoles- Springer, stewart, Perez-Stable, 2001), Big Five Inventory (BFI; John & Srivastava, 1999), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965) and General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE; Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) were used to assess the study variables. The results of Pearson product moment correlation revealed that smokers have significant negative correlation with agreeableness and conscientiousness traits of personality but have a positive correlation with self-esteem and negative correlation with self-efficacy. Experimental smokers have no correlation with any of the personality traits. Whereas, it showed negatively significant correlation with self-esteem while showed a positive association with self-efficacy. One-way ANOVA disclosed that there is a significant difference among three groups. The study has important implications in the field of health psychology and can be used in considering personality traits and improving self-esteem and self-efficacy of male medical students who smoke by taking in consideration of results for devising smoking management programs.

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