Volume 4, Issue 4, December 2013, Pages 643–648
Vaitsa Giannouli1
1 3rd Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Original language: English
Copyright © 2013 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Beliefs concerning human nature are widely examined in a series of past studies (1945, 1956, 1988, 1989). This study aimed to investigate Greek (high school and university) students' and teachers' current beliefs about human nature. A total of 307 participants: 83 beginning Greek undergraduate psychology and 94 medical students, 100 high school students and 30 high school teachers completed a 20-item questionnaire about superstitious beliefs. These data were compared with previous data from psychology first-year university students and high school teachers. The mean percentage of superstition per item for the undergraduate psychology students group was similar to the medical students, showing no statistically significant differences between the two groups. A dramatic drop was found in comparison to results on a similar first year undergraduate group of psychology students 24 years before. The same questionnaire showed a similar spectacular decline in superstitions concerning a group of high school teachers in the present study and 21 years before. The fourth study group of high school students gave a similar general disbelief in superstitions. The radical change in the way that young adults perceive human nature highlights the importance of direct or indirect time-changing cultural, scientific, and mainly educational influences. Future research should elucidate the factors influencing beliefs about human nature.
Author Keywords: Superstitions, education, science, adults, adolescents.
Vaitsa Giannouli1
1 3rd Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Original language: English
Copyright © 2013 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Beliefs concerning human nature are widely examined in a series of past studies (1945, 1956, 1988, 1989). This study aimed to investigate Greek (high school and university) students' and teachers' current beliefs about human nature. A total of 307 participants: 83 beginning Greek undergraduate psychology and 94 medical students, 100 high school students and 30 high school teachers completed a 20-item questionnaire about superstitious beliefs. These data were compared with previous data from psychology first-year university students and high school teachers. The mean percentage of superstition per item for the undergraduate psychology students group was similar to the medical students, showing no statistically significant differences between the two groups. A dramatic drop was found in comparison to results on a similar first year undergraduate group of psychology students 24 years before. The same questionnaire showed a similar spectacular decline in superstitions concerning a group of high school teachers in the present study and 21 years before. The fourth study group of high school students gave a similar general disbelief in superstitions. The radical change in the way that young adults perceive human nature highlights the importance of direct or indirect time-changing cultural, scientific, and mainly educational influences. Future research should elucidate the factors influencing beliefs about human nature.
Author Keywords: Superstitions, education, science, adults, adolescents.
How to Cite this Article
Vaitsa Giannouli, “Beliefs concerning human nature among university students and high school teachers twenty-four years ago and today,” International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 643–648, December 2013.
