Abstract
This study identifies personal characteristics which distinguish university students who conform to living group norms in complaints of physical symptoms from those who do not. Discriminant function analyses indicated significant differences between these two groups of students, and between males and females. For example, low-symptom females living in high-symptom living groups who did not themselves increase in symptoms (“environmental resisters”) were higher in dominance and religious concern and lower in social participation than those who increased in symptoms. For males, important discriminators between “conformers” and “resisters” were academic achievement and alcohol consumption. Further specification of psychological variables which relate to the degree of conformity or resistance to environmental influence is central to understanding the impact of educational settings such as student living groups and classrooms.
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Nielsen, H.D., Moos, R.H. Student-environment interaction in the development of physical symptoms. Res High Educ 6, 139–156 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00991416
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00991416