The Effect of Anxiety on Defense Mechanisms among Dutch and Indian Students: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Abstract

Anxiety could be versed with a number of daily symptoms that limits life quality, called generalized anxiety. Symptoms of anxiety can reach to number, high or low, depending on person to person. While in their lives, almost everybody has experienced anxiety at some point or other, most of them do not develop long-term problems with anxiety. The present study was conducted to examine the effect of anxiety on different defense styles among students of Groningen (Dutch) and India (Indians), in this cross cultural comparison my aim was to examine how much anxiety the students experience and what type of defense mechanisms they use. It was hypothesized that Indians are high on anxiety and use defense mechanisms more rapidly while, on the other hand Dutch are low on anxiety and use defense mechanisms sometimes. In the study, total 200 students participated (100 from Groningen (Dutch), Netherlands and 100 from Patiala (Indians), India. To measure the anxiety and defense styles; Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale HAM-A by Max Hamilton (1959) and Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40) by Andrews et al. (1993) was administered respectively. The data were subjected to measure correlation, regression and MANOVA and the major findings reveals that, there is a significant effect anxiety on population and Indians use more neurotic, Mature and Immature defenses than Dutch students.