Expended Abstract
Introduction: The sense of self-actualization, which is at the highest level in the range of Maslow’s needs, implies the flourishing of the talents and potential of human beings. The development of self-actualization has positive effects on individuals, especially students. Students with high self-actualization have a high degree of mental health and academic achievement. Life satisfaction; therefore, is important to recognize the factors affecting self-actualization in students. Perceived social support is one of the factors that appear to be related to the sense of self-actualization on students. Perceived social support is a kind of mental judgment in which one thinks that his family and friends will help him when faced with tensions and accidents. The sources of support make the person feel caring, loving, self-esteeming and worthwhile, and can successfully deal with stress factors by being part of a broad network of communication. But in addition to perceived social support, another factor that may be associated with self-actualization is the social capital. This concept refers to the links and connections among the members of a network as a valuable resource, which creates norms and mutual trust that accomplish the goals of the members, and with known sociological variables such as trust, awareness, concern about others and public issues, participation in public affairs, solidarity and group solidarity, and collaboration. Given that students are one of the main pillars of human resources in any country and play an important role in the transformation, progress and excellence of any society, the need for self-fulfillment and therefore a healthy personality as well as understanding the factors associated with self-fulfillment becomes more apparent. Therefore, the realization of a sense of self-fulfillment requires the support that students receive from society and the environment to form their personality system. On the other hand, as the dimensions of social capital expand among students, it stimulates their efforts to comprehensively develop the value system and thus their self-realization; therefore, knowing the amount of support that students receive from the environment and society, knowing the amount of social capital and knowing how they relate to each other for any kind of planning in the areas of mental, social, and cultural health to help students achieve self-fulfillment, seems necessary. Given the importance of perceived social support and social capital variables, the purpose of this study was to explain the sense of self-actualization among students by perceived social support and social capital.
Method: In a descriptive-correlational study, from among all students of various schools of Azerbaijan Shahid Madani University, in 2018-2019, 361 students (211 males and 150 females) were selected using multistage cluster sampling method and the margin of error Cochran. The participants completed the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Ahwaz Self – Actualization Inventory, and Social capital Inventory. In this study, multi-stage sampling method was used. In this way, among the different faculties of Shahid Madani University of Azerbaijan, the Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, the Faculty of Literature, the Faculty of Agriculture, and the Faculty of Basic Sciences were randomly selected. Then, a class was selected as a sample from each faculty for each degree (Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate). Before distributing the questionnaires, in order to attract the cooperation of the students of these classes, they were first provided with the necessary explanations about the purpose and importance of the research and were asked to answer all the questions of the questionnaire carefully. Then Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Ahwaz Self – Actualization Inventory, and Social capital Inventory were distributed among them. In order to analyze the data, to express descriptive indicators of mean and standard deviation and due to the distance between variables to express correlation and the share of each predictor variable in predicting the criterion of inferential statistics, including Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis SPSS.ver18 software was used.
Findings: In this study, 48.5% of the subjects were male and 51.5% of the subjects were female; also, the highest frequency of the age range is related to the age range of 18-20 years, and the lowest frequency of the age range is related to the age range of 27-29 years. The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between perceived social support components (friends, family and persons) with the sense of self-actualization. Also, there was a positive and significant relationship between the components of social capital (trust, networks and common norms, mutual cooperation and cooperation, empathy of understanding and mutual respect, co-operation and voluntary participation, collective identity) with the sense of self-actualization. The positive relationship between perceived social support and social capital with self-actualization means that with increased perceived social support and social capital, self-actualization increases in students, and vice versa. Also, the stepwise regression results showed that from components of perceived social support, important persons and friends were able to predict the sense of self-actualization. These results also indicated that from components of social capital, social solidarity and collective identity were able to predict the sense of self-actualization. The results also showed that there was no significant difference based on gender and age ranges between the subjects.
Discussion: Considering the positive relationship between perceived social support and social capital with the sense of self-actualization among students and predicting the sense of self-actualization, based on these variables, it can be concluded that perceived social support and social capital variables are important factors in explaining students’ sense of self-actualization. In line with the results of previous research studies, it can be concluded that families and friends are important sources of social support for students, and the quality and quantity of social relationships, social ties or social capital determines the growth and prosperity of students. So neglecting these factors can cost a lot of financial resourses for the higher education system. Therefore, by designing practical policies to increase the perceived social protection level, as well as expanding social capital, establishing interpersonal and group relationships, self-awareness and conflict resolution can be significantly affected by the costs and educational costs of the education system. Therefore, paying more attention to these variables and raising them among students and other groups is essential. Despite the useful educational implications that can be deduced from the results of this study; like other studies, there are some limitations. One of these limitations is that the present study was conducted only among students of one university and care should be taken in generalizing the results to other individuals and age groups. Therefore, it is suggested that in future research, different age groups should be studied and the results should be compared with the present study.


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