Anxiety, Loneliness, Optimism, and Wellbeing: A Study amongst Pong Dam Oustees

Abstract

Assessing the status of anxiety, loneliness, optimism and wellbeing among the displaced socially disadvantaged people as influenced by mega dam like Pong of District Kangra in H. P. is really an arduous task. Despite this the researchers make an effort to appraise its status in a sample of N = 280 (140 Displaced and 140 Nondisplaced) by dividing them on the basis of Caste (70 Scheduled Caste and Non Scheduled Caste). In this manner four groups namely Displaced SC, Displaced NSC, Non-displaced SC and Non Displaced Non-SC with N = 70 in each were formed. The subjects were analyzed quantitatively by presenting various psychological measures (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Loneliness Scale, Pessimistic Optimistic Attitude scale, General Self-efficacy Scale and General Wellbeing measures) including qualitative measures (Field Observation, Interview, Fuzzy Cognitive mapping, and Case Study). The result obtained from the two way analysis of variance as performed on the state anxiety revealed that the main effect of Caste was found F (1,276) = 16.17, p< 0.01 as statistically significant wherein the scheduled caste people reported more state anxiety (28.79) as compared to their non-scheduled caste counterpart (27.41). Further, the interaction between Caste x Displacement was also found F (1,276) = 10.98, p< 0.01 as statistically significant. Similarly the main effect of Displacement on the measure of loneliness was found F (1,276) = 464.26, p <.01 as statistically significant wherein displaced people reported more loneliness problem (54.83) as compared to their non-displaced (42.73) counterpart. The main effect of Caste in the measure of optimistic and pessimistic attitude was found F (1,276) = 6.56, p< 0.01 as statistically significant wherein the scheduled castes experience more pessimistic (24.44) as compared to their non-scheduled caste(25.28) counterpart. In the same tune, main effect of Displacement was also found F (1,276) = 17.02, p <.01 as statistically significant wherein the displaced people were found pessimistic (24.18) as compared to the non-displaced people (25.54). Finally, the main effect of Caste on the measure of general wellbeing was found F (1,276) = 12.61, p< 0.01 as statistically significant wherein the scheduled caste people reported poor wellbeing (17.54) as compared to their non-scheduled caste(18.66) counterpart. Similarly the main effect of Displacement in the aforesaid measure was also found F (1,276) = 31.581, p<0.01 as statistically significant wherein displaced people (17.21) reported poor wellbeing as compared to their non-displaced counterpart (18.99). The study revealed that the socially disadvantaged displaced people are suffering more anxiety, loneliness, pessimism and allostatic load.