Conservative orientation as a determinant of hopelessness.
Conservative orientation is identified with reference to authoritarianism, work ethic belief, just world belief, and endorsement of individualistic causes of social problems. This over-arching orientation is hypothesized to affect hopelessness and to be affected by self-esteem with reference to ego development theory and learned helplessness theory. Causal modeling of data obtained from 1st-year college students (N = 556) in Hong Kong supports the hypotheses, showing that a student's hopelessness relates to his or her conservative orientation, even when self-esteem is controlled. This relationship can be interpreted by ego development and learned helplessness theories and cannot be explained as a spurious effect. Through the theories, hopelessness is interpreted as a result of maladaptive development and fatalistic, alienated, and helpless outlooks. This maladaptive development and the outlooks in turn result from students' conservative and individualistic orientation.
Cheung
C K
CK
Centre for Clinical Trials and Epidemiological Research, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sha Tin, Hong Kong.
Kwok
S T
ST
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001318:Authoritarianism; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004532:Ego; D005260:Female; D006380:Helplessness, Learned; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012649:Self Concept; D012918:Social Alienation; D012945:Social Values