The Impact of Academic Jealousy and Self-Esteem on Psychological Well-Being of Tribal College Students

Abstract

In today's educational environment, tribal college students frequently encounter particular difficulties, including academic jealousy and erratic self-esteem, which can have a direct impact on their psychological well-being. In the tribal setting, where peer competition, cultural shifts, and scarce resources can exacerbate emotional and academic stress, these elements become especially crucial. The current study examines the predictive significance of academic jealousy and self-esteem on psychological well-being among tribal college-going students in the Anuppur district of Madhya Pradesh, which has important ramifications for the students' mental health and general academic adjustment. Purposive sampling was used to choose 100 tribal college students for the study sample from the Anuppur district of Madhya Pradesh. The self-constructed scale of Academic Jealousy in the tribal context, the cultural adaptation of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale by Singh & Yadav (2024), and the cultural adaptation of Ryff’s Psychological Well-Being Scale by the researcher were among the standardized instruments used. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's product-moment correlation, and simple linear regression were used to analyze the data using SPSS. The results showed that psychological well-being was strongly and negatively predicted by academic jealousy (β = -.407, p <.001), accounting for 16.6% of the variation. In contrast, self-esteem only accounted for 3.4% of the variation and had a weak positive association with psychological well-being (r =.184, p <.05). However, its regression analysis revealed no significant predictive potential (β =.184, p =.066). These results show how academic jealousy negatively affects tribal students' psychological well-being and imply that, despite its relationship, self-esteem is not a reliable indicator of psychological well-being among tribal students. The findings highlight the significance of lowering academic jealousy while fostering supportive learning environments that promote positive self-perceptions in order to enhance the psychological well-being of tribal students in higher education.