Self Esteem and Depression: Relations with Muslims’ Happiness

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue IV, April 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186

Self Esteem and Depression: Relations with Muslims’ Happiness

Ateerah, A. R., Lukman, Z. M.

Faculty of Applied Social Sciences, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Kuala Nerus, 20300 Terengganu, Malaysia

Abstract- Happiness is negatively correlated with depression and anxiety. Likewise, self-esteem has close relationship with the element of happiness. Previous research mentioned that it possesses high correlations between measurement of happiness and self-esteem [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. Thus, one aim of this study is to viewboth positive and negative aspects, by exploring the differential level of depression, self esteem and happiness on Muslim students.The method of this research is quantitative, and the respondents were selected in several states in Malaysia, which approximately 500 people. This research used Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (RSES), Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS 21) and happiness instrument developed by the researcher based on al-Ghazali’s concept of happiness. After conducting the descriptive analysis for every construct, this research used the average of construct, whereas to determine the correlation between depression and self-esteem aspects, pearson correlation has been computed and the result is significant which is r=-0.462, p<0.01]. It shows that the direction of relationship was found to be negative at the moderate level. As a conclusion, there is positive relationship with happiness and self esteem, and it negatively correlated with depression.

I. INTRODUCTION

This study employs developed instrument of happiness which is based on al-Ghazali’s concept of happiness that contains the aspect of religious knowledge, practices and the individual element. The happiness instrument also contains several sub-domains, for example, the construct of religious knowledge encompasses of several aspects namely knowledge of self, knowledge of God, knowledge of the World, and knowledge of the hereafter. For the construct of practices, it includes the element of soul purification practice and social relationship which contribute to Muslim’s happiness.
This study looks at three different elements as dependent variables that relate to Muslim’s happiness. First, in line with previous research, we examined religious knowledge which reflected as related contributor of happiness based on al-Ghazali’s model (e.g: knowing several religious concept contributes to happiness). Second, to focus more on practices, we examined soul purification (e.g. peforming prayer contributes to happiness) and social relationship (e.g. people would be happy if they interact well with society) aspects. Third, we examined individual’s perspective regarding happiness (e.g. whether or not wealth and health acts as an indicator of happiness).

Read More