Strengths among Contemporary Teenagers: A Comparative Study

Male and female are two indispensible wheels of a chariot, thus both complement each other and this is a fact that without any one of them, it is just impossible to imagine the smooth continuation of the journey of life. India is a country where women were worshiped as Goddess. Though the society in which we live has been shaped historically by males. But recently the existing scenario appears to be changing with the realization of strengths among females. A harmonious society appears to be emerging with the fast speed of decline in gender-specificity. In order to empirically confirm these notions, the present researchers decided to explore and compare the profile of strengths of male-female adolescents. A test of Hindi adaptation of Value In Action (VIA) Inventory of Strengths for Youth by Shree and Singh (2013) was used. A purposive sample of 150 adolescents in which 75 were males and 75 were females with the age range of 13-17 years was drawn from Rohtak city, Haryana. The descriptive statistics was used to find out the mean differences in strengths of male and female adolescents. They differed to some extent in their profile of signature strengths. Further the profile of top five strengths also called “signature strengths”, the male and female differed in two out of five signature strengths. The similar signature strengths found in both male and female adolescents were such as judgment/critical thinking, appreciation of beauty and love, however they differed on two strengths such as zest and perspective were found in male while kindness and modesty were found in female. The inference drawn from the current study is that females are more humane than the male counterpart whereas males are found to be more courageous than females. The need to foster or enhance certain strengths in specific gender are discussed in the paper.