In a study of eating disorders, 297 Australian and 249 Indian university students completed the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26; Garner, Olmsted, Bohr, & Garfinkel, 1982) and the Goldfarb Fear of Fat Scale (GFFS; Goldfarb, Dykens, & Gerrard, 1985). Contrary to predictions, the Indian participants scored significantly higher than the Australian participants on both measures. The Indian women scored significantly higher than the Australian women on the EAT-26 but not on the GFFS. The Australian men showed significantly fewer symptoms than all other groups. The Indian men did not differ from the Australian or Indian women on either the EAT-26 or GFFS. The urban Indians did not differ from their rural counterparts on the GFFS, but the rural Indians had significantly higher EAT-26 scores than the urban Indians.
We compared marital adjustment and subjective well-being in Indian-educated housewives (N = 200) and working women (N = 200) who were administered a Marital Adjustment Questionnaire (Kumar & Rastogi, 1976) and 10 measures of subjective well-being (Warr, 1984). Results indicated significantly better marital adjustment and subjective well-being for the working women than for the housewives. Specifically, working women reported higher scores on general health, life satisfaction, and self-esteem measures and lower scores on hopelessness, insecurity, and anxiety, compared with the housewives, although the housewives had lower scores on negative affect than the working women. Findings were insignificant on positive affect and depression.
The article first outlines historical suicide patterns. Case histories mirror a wide range of frustrations and family tensions in our present generation and show the socioeconomic, sociophilosophical, and cultural changes that are sweeping Indian society and are greatly adding to the tensions in life, resulting in a substantially higher occurrence of suicide. Varieties of family patterns are described that predispose an individual to suicidal behavior. It has been stressed that the single most important variable in the development of suicidal behavior remains the family unit.
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