Psychological Alienation and Feeling of Self-Efficiency in Young Male and Female Adults

Abstract

In psychology, alienation is a condition of being separated or marginalized from other individuals or some larger segment of society. Self-efficacy is an individual's belief in their capacity to act in ways necessary to reach specific goals. This study was conducted to investigate the possible connectivity between psychological alienation and feelings of self-efficiency among young male and female adults. The study was conducted in April 2023, among 167 young people, aged 18-25 (M=22.28 ± 1.7SD). For this purpose, we used the Scale for psychological alienation and General self-efficacy. Results showed that there is a significant negative correlation between alienation and self-efficacy, meaning that the higher psychological alienation is, the lower self-efficacy is (t=-0.627; <0.001). There is a statistically significant difference between young male and female adults regarding alienation (t=-5.592; <0.001) e. g. males are reporting to be more alienated than females. Also, there is a statistically significant difference between young male and female adults regarding feeling of self-efficacy (t=4.692; <0.001) e.g. males feel less effective than females and in the scale for measuring meaninglessness (t=-2.966; 0.003) e. g. males feel more meaninglessness than females. In conclusion, psychological alienation and self-efficacy are correlated and there are gender differences regarding the two measured variables, in favor of the females.