Barbara Gonzalez1 & J. Pais Ribeiro2
1Departamento de Psicologia da Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisboa
2Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto
RESUMO: O objectivo deste estudo foi investigar a relação entre comportamentos de saúde e dimensões de personalidade em estudantes universitárias da licenciatura em Psicologia de uma Universidade de Lisboa. Os participantes foram 270 estudantes, do sexo feminino, de 18 a 30 anos (M=21,69; DP=2,11). Os comportamentos de saúde foram avaliados com o Questionário de Comportamentos de Saúde (Ribeiro, 1993) e, as dimensões de personalidade foram avaliadas com o Inventário de Personalidade NEO-Revisto (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992). As correlações estatisticamente significativas obtidas entre os comportamentos de saúde são baixas a muito baixas, assim como as obtidas entre os comportamentos de saúde e as dimensões de personalidade, sugerindo que a relação entre eles não é forte. O teste t de diferença de médias mostra uma diferença significativa entre os dois grupos etários (18-21 e 22-30), t(270)=-2,11, p<0,03, para a faceta 5 (Ideias) da dimensão Abertura à Experiência, com valor superior no segundo grupo, o que, relativamente à dimensão global, não é congruente com a literatura. Vários outros resultados não são congruentes com a literatura, eventualmente devido à especificidade da amostra deste estudo. Na globalidade, os resultados parecem mostrar que os factores de personalidade são fracos preditores dos comportamentos de saúde, relacionando-se com o facto de factores psicológicos gerais explicarem apenas uma pequena proporção da variância dos comportamentos de saúde, ao contrário do que acontece com factores sócio-cognitivos relativos a actividades específicas.
Palavras chave: Comportamentos de saúde, Dimensões de personalidade.
Health Behaviours and Personality Dimensions in Young College Students
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to inspect the relationship between health behaviours and personality dimensions in female Psychology college students, of a Lisbon University. Participants were 270 female students, age 18-30 (M=21,69; SD=2,11). We measured health behaviours with Health Behaviour Questionnair (Ribeiro, 1993) and personality dimensions with NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992). Correlation between health behaviours, and between health behaviours and personality dimensions, shows statistically significant but low and very low correlations, suggesting that the relation between these two is not strong. T test for mean differences shows a statistically significant difference between the two age groups (18-21 e 22-30), t(270)=-2,11, p<0,03, for facet 5 (Ideas) of Overture to Experience dimension, being higher in the second group, what, in what comes to the global dimension, is not congruent with literature. Some other results were not congruent with the literature, suggesting that the sample of this study has some particularities to be investigated. Overall, the results seem to show that personality dimensions are weak predictors of health behaviours, relating to the fact that personality dimensions accounts for only a small proportion of the variance in the health practices index, which is a commom finding when general psychological factors, rather than socio-cognitive factors related to specific activities, are assessed.
Key words: Health behaviours, Personality dimensions.
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