This study examined the relationship among social support, stress and coping behavior among 376 students(154 students depending on internal locus of control and 122 students depending on external locus of control). Using the covariance structure modeling(LISREL-VIII), the relationship among three constructs were investigated, There was a significant direct effect of social support on coping behavior and indirect effect through stress situation. Also, social support had a significant direct effect on stress and stress variable had a direct effect on coping behavior. In other words, it was founded that social support is used to coping behavior as coping resource as well as relax that as effect to evaluation and cognition to stress situations. This result is support to stress appraisal model by Cohen, Wills(1985) & Lazarus, Folkman(1984). Causal relationship of each variables was not difference depending on internal-external locus of control. This result is consistent with studies that deny personality variable about effect of social support recently. A men eveluate to social support and stress situations regardless of depending on internal-external locus of control and that evaluation was founded that important variable to decide coping behavior.
The important social issues that are perceived by the middle class of Korean people were investigated and compared with the findings from the previos survey (Hahn, 1994). Based on the method used in the previous study, the checklist containing 355 social issues were administered to 1771 college students and their parents in 5 regional areas in Korea. The collected data were analyzed by age, sex, and regional areas to compare their characteristics with the results of the previous study. The results showed that there were 9 important social issues with more than 50% of participants endorsed. More specifically, the most important issues in order were: ① injustice and corruption of the politicians, ② environmental pollution, ③ injustice and corruption of the public servants, ④ college entrance examination, ⑤ high rate of unemployment, ⑥ social ostracism in school setting, ⑦ authority corruption, ⑧ political weakness of the government, and ⑨ unemployment of the graduates from the local college. Overall, the number of important social issues in 1999 decreased from those in 1994. However, the injustice and the corruption of the politicians seemed to became worse in 1999 than in 1994 (1994, 66.94%; 1999, 75.27%). According to the response rates in the present survey, environmental pollution and traffic issue seemed to be less important than in 1994. The findings based on the analyses by age, sex and the regional areas were similar to the previous study of 1994. Finally, the limitations of this study and suggestions for the future study are discussed.
Two investigations were carried out to understand the normative characteristics of the public and private social spheres in Korea. In study 1, the contents of the textbooks for ethic class for the first two levels of elementary school were analyzed. The books contained a number of norms which I classified into three categories. The norms place strong emphasis on the importance of social harmony and hierarchy in both private and public relationship, indicating no clear demarcation between private and public spheres. In study 2, students in two age groups(middle school and college) were provided three brief vignettes and asked to evaluate the action taken by the protagonist. Each vignette described a social situation where the actor acted for public justice or for private relationship. For a half of the students the vignettes described justice oriented action and for the other half, relationship orited action. The respondents favored the justice discourse but the relationship discourse was also frequently appeared. The two discourses may represent two different modes of thinking which cannot be reducible to either one. Suggestions were made with regard to ethics education in elementary school and to psychologist's approach toward social discourses in Korea.
The purpose of the present study was to analyze driver's behavioral pattern in traffic conflict situation using a driving simulation study and to develop a diagnosis system for the driver's behavior pattern based on driving performance data in simulated traffic conflict situation. In Study I, typical and representative driving conflict situations were determined by using an in-depth interview. In Study II, driver's collision avoidance behavior patterns under the various traffic conflict situations were analyzed in terms of drivers' response strategies and their effectiveness. The main results can be summarized as follows: First, the drivers tended to report traffic situations as conflicting in intersection rather than straight lane condition. Second, conflict avoidance effort using brake or both brake and steering wheel found to be more effective than using steering wheel alone in terms of various safety criterial such as speed at collision and number of collisions. Third, drivers performances such as collision avoidance and vehicle operations were better in traffic conflict condition of "cross-traffic-from-right" than "cross-traffic-from-right" or "opposing lane". Finally, a possible model of diagnosis system for driver's conflict avoidance behavior pattern under the traffic conflict situation was proposed and several implications of the study were discussed.
The present study was designed to explore the effects of success-failure experiences in job hunting on a variety of psychological functions of individuals. As participants 476 people in the twenties completed questionnaires of changes in life events, career attitudes, identity, mental health, life well-being, perceived control, and hopelessness. On the basis of attempts to hunt a job and subsequent sucess-failure experiences, participants were partitioned into four groups; complete success group, partial sucess group, complete failure group, and no attempt group. Results indicated that the complete failure group experienced the worst changes in life events and marked the lowest scores for mental health, perceived control, and life well-being. Instead, the complete success group was the best functional in a range of psychological respects, especially in preparation for and attitudes toward job. Although the no attempt group had a somewhat high level of life well-being, they reported a high score on the future hopelessness scale and revealed a low level of perceived control.
The present study was directed to explore the levels of psycho-social development, and emotional and behavioral characteristics manifested by those who are involved in bullying at school. For 450 out of 1212 students of the 4th to 7th grade, self ratings were congruents with peer nominations in status for school bullying and so further analyses were based on their data. The participants were partitioned into four groups (bully, victim, bylly/victim, and comparison group) and completed the Self-Image Questionnaire for Young Adolescents and the Child Behavior Checklist. Results indicated that the comparison group reached the higher level of psyco-social development than the other three groups. However, the bully group had somewhat self-esteem, whereas the victim and the bully/victim group had typical dysfunctional problems. In particular, the worst bully/victim group formed very derogatory family relationships. Finally, the bully group manifested physical aggressions and the victim group related to a lack of self-control and show-off behavior. These results suggest that different service programs should be required for different groups.