A Study On Psychological Entitlement Of College Students And Its Influencing Factors

Psychological entitlement is a persistent and universal feeling that one is eligible to deserve special treatment and bear no social responsibilities.Several studies have shown that psychological entitlement of teenagers is increasing year by year,and this is also true for contemporary college students.As excessive psychological entitlement adversely affect college students’ personality,behavior,interpersonal relationship and their subjective experience,a mounting number of universities pay close attention to it.This study examines the current state of college students’ psychological entitlement,analyzes its influencing factors and proposes corresponding countermeasures,aiming to draw some reference for students management in universities and to facilitate the healthy development of college students’ body and mind.Based on the review of existing research,this study integrates quantitative and qualitative analysis methods.It mainly includes the following three parts.Part I: General characteristics of college students’ psychological entitlement.This part adopts quantitative method.The researcher conducts a cross-sectional survey on the current state of college students’ psychological entitlement through Psychological Entitlement Scale(PES),and explores its differences in term of demographic background variables.Part II: Influencing factors of college students’ psychological entitlement.This part uses the qualitative analysis method.The researcher interviews the respondents screened by the results of the Study 1(8 students each with high and low psychological entitlement),and then extract the influencing factors of their psychological entitlement with the help of qualitative analysis software.Part III: Strategy for improving college students’ psychological entitlement.This part utilizes the qualitative analysis method again.Drawing on the findings of the first two parts of the study,the researcher continued to interview the respondents of Study 2 about their strategies for improving psychological entitlement.This section codes the interviewees’ answers to build the improvement strategy model of college students’ psychological entitlement.The major findings in the above three studies are as following.(1)The overall psychological entitlement of college students is moderately low.There are significant differences in major category,year of study,place of residence,whether they are student leaders,whether they are only children,highest parental education,and household monthly income.Among them,the major category,whether one child,year of study,highest parental education,and monthly family earnings are significant factors affecting the psychological entitlement of college students.(2)The influencing factors of college students’ psychological entitlement mainly include two aspects: individual factors and environmental factors,each of which has several dimensions.From the perspective of high psychological entitlement,the individual factors primarily consist of five aspects: cognition,personality characteristics,personal needs,individual ability and previous experience;the environmental factors majorly contain five parts: family,community,school,network and peers.From the perspective of low psychological entitlement,the individual factors mainly including four aspects of psychological resources,personal quality,ability level and passing experience;the environmental factors chiefly focus on four aspects of family,society,school and peers.family,community,campus and peers.(3)In view of the above influencing factors,it is possible to propose strategies to improve psychological entitlement of college students from four dimensions: students themselves,family education,school guidance and social influence.