Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the conventionalized social behaviors, which were connected with Korean Confucianism and constituted salient facets of social norms in Korean culture, upon social adjustment, stress and subjective well-being. The main hypotheses of the study was that behavioral frequency of the 15 important behaviors would influence on subjective well-being through two mediation processes of social adjustment and psychological stress. The subjects of the survey research were 2,129 middle age and college students (average age 32.6) from 7 regional areas in Korea. The main results of this study were as follow: (1) The validity of the above two mediation processes model was confirmed from the fitness test of the covariance structural equation model. (2) It was shown that almost all of the simple correlation coefficients between 15 social behaviors and the above three criteria were significant. (3) The results of the fitness test of the causal model showed that the family relationship, filial piety, relationships with the relatives, devoting and following to the superordinates, caring and directing subordinates and collectivistic behavior contributed positively to subjective well-being respectively. On the other hand both of worship toward ancester and suppression of behavioral expression of negative emotions showed negative path coefficients to the subjective well-being. The meanings of the results were discussed in terms of the Confucian traditions and recent social changes in Korean culture. The limitations of this study and the suggestions for the future study were also discussed.