Interpersonal Attraction between Teachers and Students as a Function of Need, Value and Personality Factors

Abstract

The present study attempts at investigating Interpersonal Attraction between teachers and students as a function of need, value and personality factors. For this purpose, the similarities and differences of Interpersonal Attraction of Govt.-Non-govt. school teachers and students in relation to certain ideological groups, personality variables, need variables, value variables and attitude variables and socio-demographic factors within the framework of socio-cultural background have been investigated. The study has been developed in the theoretical framework of (I) Psychoanalytic approach of Interpersonal Attraction; (2) Newcomb's theory of Interpersonal Attraction; (3)Thibaut, Kelley and Homan's exchange theory of Attraction; (4) Winch's Need Complementarity and Attraction theories; (5)A reward model of Attraction theory by Albert and Bernice, Byrne and Clore; (6) Rokeach's hierarchy of values and Interpersonal Attraction. All these theoretical framework have been utilized in order to show similarities and differences of Interpersonal Attraction of Govt. and Non-govt. school teachers and students. The present study uses a multidimensional correlational approach with a criterion group design. The study was conducted on two phases. In the first phase criterion groups of Govt. school teachers-students and Non-govt. school teachers-students were selected on the basis of "Interpersonal Attraction Criteria Questionnaire" for measuring Interpersonal Attraction. The criterion groups of each teachers-student were further subdivided into primary and secondary school teachers-students. Each primary and secondary level was again subdivided into male and female according to their gender background. The use of criterion group design has considerable advantage in highlighting the differences between Govt. and Non-govt. teachers-students, as well as interpersonal differences in relation to the Attitudinal similarity and interpersonal attraction, Complementarity needs and interpersonal attraction, Propinquity and interpersonal attraction, Physical attractiveness and interpersonal attraction, Need similarity and interpersonal attraction, Value similarity and interpersonal attraction selected for the study. The design affords the oppo11unity of studying differences in attitudes, personality, need, value and interpersonal attraction of two groups of teachers-students more effectively in a natural state of field setting and thus offering greater generalizability of finding in comparison to causal experimental design using a restricted range of variables. In the second phase, the criterion groups were given measure of (i) Interpersonal attraction attitude (ii) Personality (iii) Need (iv) Value and (v) Attitude. The interpersonal attraction measures included (a) Interpersonal Attraction scale; Personality measures included (b) Modification of Rotter's Interpersonal Trust scale; Need measures included (c) Modification of Murray's Need scale; Value measures included (d) Modification of Rokeach's Value scale; Attitude measures included ( e) Interpersonal Attraction Criteria Questionnaire scale. Demographic information included male and female gender differences. The study utilized two groups of samples drawn from Rajshahi City Corporation. One group was the teachers-students of Govt. school and another group was the teachers-students of Non-govt. school. The Govt. teachers' sample was composed of 200 respondents and the Non-govt. teachers' sample was composed of 200 respondents. These respondents equally divided into primary-secondary and male-female according to their gender background. Again, the students' sample was composed of 120 respondents for Govt. school and 120 respondents for Non-govt. school. These respondents were also equally divided into primary-secondary and male-female according to their gender background. Thus, the study composed of total 400 respondents for teachers and total 240 respondents for students. In this study, the respondents randomly selected were Muslims and Hindus. No criteria were fixed for this selection. The main objectives of the present study was to explore the patterns of Interpersonal Attraction attitudes of two levels and two types of teachers in Bangladesh as related to Need similarity, Need complementarity, Value similarity and Trust personality factors and gender differences. More specifically the objectives were as follows: i) To study patterns of interpersonal attraction attitudes as a function of teaching activities in terms of need similarity need complementarity and value similarity attitudes. ii) To study patterns of similarities and differences on interpersonal attraction attitudes as related to need satisfaction attitudes. iii) To study patterns of similarities and differences in interpersonal attraction attitudes as related to personality such as interpersonal trust scores of the teachers and students. iv) To study similarity and differences in interpersonal attitudes as related to value orientation of the teachers and students. v) To study the similarities and differences in interpersonal attraction attitudes as related to Govt.-Non-govt., Primary-Secondary and Male-Female gender background of the teacher and students……………………