Attitudes Towards Young People in Bulgaria

doi:10.4236/psych.2011.27102

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Psychology

2011. Vol.2, No.7, 669-673

Attitudes towards Young People in Bulgaria

Stanislava Stoyanova

Department of Psychology, South-West University “Neofit Rilski”, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria.

Email: [email protected]

Received August 22nd, 2011; revised September 23rd, 2011; accepted October 11th, 2011.

This paper presents a study of the stereotypes of and attitudes towards young people in Bulgaria. The method

was developed on the basis of Fishbein’s and Ajzen theory and using several coding matrices for content analy-

sis by a group of psychologists during the summer school “Social cognition” held in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria in

July 2010. The social involvement of young people, life satisfaction and family issues were studied.

Keywords: Attitudes, Youth, Life Satisfaction, Social Involvement

Introduction

Attitudes are usually conceived as evaluative appraisals

(Leone, Perugini, & Ercolani, 1999), a person’s favourable or

unfavourable evaluation of a social object (Fishbein & Ajzen,

1975; Meshel & McGlynn, 2004). The attitudes toward youth

include the image of a young person—student, the intentions to

interact with a young person—student, the beliefs that young

people—students can take part in academic and non-academic

classes (Siperstein et al., 2007).

According to the tripartite or hierarchical model of attitudes

described by McGuire (1986), attitudes have cognitive, affect-

tive, and behavioural response tendencies. Cognitive compo-

nents of the attitudes are beliefs that can be defined as a per-

son’s knowledge or information about an attitude object

(Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). A person’s attitude is related to a set

of intentions to behave certain ways toward an attitude object

(Meshel & McGlynn, 2004).

The Fishbein-Ajzen model contains two composite variables

which determine how an individual intends to behave. One

variable, the attitude, consists of the beliefs about and evalua-

tions of the consequences of a specific form of behaviour. The

other variable is a summary measure of the norms attributed to

relevant others (e.g. parents, friends) and the extent to which

someone tends to conform to these expectations (Knibbe,

Oostveen, & Van De Goor, 1991).

As a part of the expectancy-value approach, the direct pre-

dictor of behaviour is intention that is function of attitude to-

ward the act (a personal evaluative response), and subjective

norms (the social information available and the perceived social

pressure to behave). The Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour

(TPB) claims that perceived behavioural control (defined as the

perception of how difficult or easy an action is to perform for a

given subject) interacts with attitudes and subjective norms in

order to create intention to behave. The greater is the perceived

behavioural control, the more positive is the behavioural inten-

tion and the more likely is the performance of behaviour. The

Bagozzi’s (1992) Theory of Self-regulation (TSR) claims that

desire interacts with attitudes and subjective norms and leads to

intention (in Leone, Perugini, & Ercolani, 1999).

Among young men in The Netherlands frequency of past

behaviour contributed more to the present habits and behaviour

than the beliefs, norms and perceived skills that the Fishbein-

Ajzen model assumed (Knibbe, Oostveen, & Van De Goor,

1991).

Findings about Attitudes towards Young People

The eight years old children in USA held primarily negative

attitudes toward older persons. Three quarters of the younger

sample preferred to be with younger people. Older persons had

positive attitudes toward younger persons. Older persons’ atti-

tudes toward young people (age 11 - 13) became significantly

more positive after a long contact with them (for several weeks

in the process of cross-age education) (Meshel & McGlynn,

2004).

Normative youth’s attitudes toward integrating detached

youth within normative youth settings in USA were positive

(Romi, 1999). Children and youth in USA hold negative atti-

tudes toward their peers with intellectual disabilities (Siperstein

et al., 2007).

Those who know most of the young people in their area in

Scotland were much more likely than those who know none to

have positive attitudes towards young people. Those adults who

have least contact with young people were more likely to have

negative views of the young person (Anderson, Bromley, &

Given, 2005).

Discussion with peers, direct contact with a non-stereotypic

target, and increasing knowledge of target group persons were

effective in producing positive attitude change toward target

group with the direct contact approach proving to be the most

effective (Meshel & McGlynn, 2004).

Measuring Attitudes

The attitudes could be measured by means of questionnaires,

group interviews (Knibbe, Oostveen, & Van De Goor, 1991),

semantic-differential 7-point scales defined as positive/negative

(Leone, Perugini, & Ercolani, 1999; Meshel & McGlynn, 2004),

list of the most important persons for the subject and indicating

how much each of them would approve or disapprove some

kind of behaviour, indicating on a 7-point scale how easy or

difficult it is for the subject to behave in a defined way, indi-

cating on a 7-point scale own desire to behave in a defined way,

indicating on a 7-point scale the likelihood to behave in a de-

fined way, indicating on a 7-point scale the frequency of past

behaviour (Leone, Perugini, & Ercolani, 1999), a short paper

describing the target group, interviews, photographs of unfa-

miliar members of the target group (Meshel & McGlynn, 2004),

a participant information sheet, a written vignette describing the

target group, an attitude and beliefs rating scale containing

S. STOYANOVA

670

about 40 statements presented as 4-point Likert-scale items

from 1 strongly agree to 4 strongly disagree (Stinnett, Cruce, &

Choate, 2004).

An attitude toward a person or object is appropriately meas-

ured by having an individual place an object on a bipolar affect-

tive or evaluative dimension (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Meshel

& McGlynn, 2004).

Method

An attitude scale based on Fishbein and Ajzen model was

developed (Stoyanova et al., 2010) using stereotypes to define

young people across cultures mainly based on Bolzan and col-

leagues’ research findings (Bolzan, 2003). The attitude scale

was designed to assess both young and elderly people’s atti-

tudes toward young people (13 - 25 years old). It consists of 18

stereotypes about young people which are common in the pre-

sent literature. The sample item for a positive stereotype is

“hard-working” and the sample item for a negative stereotype is

“selfish”. Respondents are required to indicate how positive or

negative is each item to them on a 7 point scale (–3 = extremely

negative; +3 = extremely positive). Scoring of the scale is based

on the formula developed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) which

is A = ∑ (b*e). In this formula, A stands for the attitude, ∑ is

sum, b is how typical is the belief, * is multiply and e stands for

how positive or negative is the quality (Fishbein, 1967: p. 394).

Two questions about life satisfaction were included on the

basis of the suggestive research evidence (Meshel & McGlynn,

2004) and expert agreement (Stoyanova et al., 2010) about the

link between life satisfaction and attitudes toward young people.

Those questions are rated on a seven point semantic differential

scale where 1 means unsatisfied and 7 means satisfied with the

life. Furthermore questions about demographic information

were included in the end of the questionnaire (Stoyanova et al.,

2010).

A content analysis matrix was prepared on the basis of the

content analysis matrices and results from previous studies

(Anglin et al., 2000; Lampman et al., 2002; Ward, 2005; Bol-

zan, 2003) by a group of 7 psychologists during the European

Summer School “Social Cognition” held in Blagoevgrad, Bul-

garia in July 2010, organized by the European Federation of

Psychology Students’ Associations, and the Association of

Young Psychologists In Bulgaria “4th April” in the campus of

South-West University “Neofit Rilski” (Stoyanova et al., 2010).

This content analysis matrix was created to study media repre-

sentations of the age group from 13 to 25 years old. A content

analysis of September 2010 issues of two print Bulgarian daily

newspapers (“Sega” and “Telegraph”) was carried out. A total

of 159 articles dedicated to young people (36 in “Sega” and 123

in “Telegraph”) were coded according to key topics like the

focus of the article (22 foci were enumerated and among them

were family issues), and the attitude towards young people

expressed by the source of the material cited and the news item.

Hypotheses

1) Young people will have more positive attitudes towards

young people; teenagers will have a more positive attitude to-

wards young people than people older than 20; elderly people

will have negative attitudes about young people (because of the

in-group favouritism—Turner, 1990; and because the advance

in age is related to increase in prejudices—Wagner & Zick,

1995).

2) Other socio-demographic groups (educational, gender,

with different family and social status) will differ in their atti-

tudes towards young people.

3) People who feel satisfied from their life are more likely to

have positive attitude towards young people (because they do

not consider the attitude of their environment as hostile, and

they feel community with other people—Adler, 1920: p. 103).

4) The image of young people reflected by the media is pre-

dominantly a positive one.

Participants

This research was designed as a cross-sectional survey. The

ideal sample size for the preliminary studies is recommended as

100 (Prince, Stewart, Ford, & Hotopf, 2003).

The research was carried out from 1 September 2010 to 23

November 2010. The participants were approached personally.

They were given information sheets and consent forms to help

them with making informed decisions about their participation

in the study. Then the consenting participants were adminis-

tered the attitude scale.

114 subjects in Bulgaria from 18 to 62 years old were studied.

Their mean age was 22 years old (SD = 9 years). 88 respon-

dents (80.7%) were from 18 to 20 years old. 8 respondents were

from 21 to 30 years old. 6 respondents were from 31 to 40 years

old. 5 respondents were from 41 to 50 years old. 5 respondents

were from 51 to 60 years old. 2 respondents were from 61 to 65

years old.

88 were women (78%) and 26 were men (22%). 17 were

married (14.9%). 97 were single (85.1%). 98 did not have any

children (86%). 8 had 1 child (7%) and 8 had 2 children (7%).

86 graduated from high school (75.4%). 13 graduated from

lyceum (11.4%). 2 graduated from technical school (1.8%). 11

graduated from university (9.6%). 2 hold a PhD degree (1.8%).

91 were students (79.8%) in speech pathology 2nd year,

psychology 1st year, public administration 1st year. 20 were

workers (17.5%)—psychologists, accountants, administrators,

barwomen, dispatchers, electricians, managers, social workers,

teachers, and waitresses. 2 were pensioners (1.8%). 1 was un-

employed (.9%).

Results

The participants in Bulgaria estimated as positive the quail-

ties like capable (by 96.6%1; mean = 2.6; SD = .773); intelli-

gent (by 93.9%; mean = 2.48; SD = .885); hard-working (by

96.5%; mean = 2.45; SD = .883); self-assured (by 97.4%; mean

= 2.39; SD = .805); fun loving (by 97.3%; mean = 2.21; SD

= .749); optimistic (by 93.9%; mean = 2.11; SD = 1.067); en-

thusiastic (by 93.7%; mean = 1.85; SD = 1.076); easygoing (by

86.7%; mean = 1.83; SD = 1.195); involved in social issues (by

85.9%; mean = 1.7; SD = 1.197); risk-taking (by 81.5%; mean

= 1.28; SD = .982). The most positively estimated qualities

were inherent. Less positively estimated qualities were these

ones that a person should put some efforts to achieve them.

The participants in Bulgaria estimated as negative the quail-

ties and the behaviours such as taking drugs (by 97.4%2; mean

= –2.84; SD = .759); excessive drinking (by 92.9%; mean =

–2.5; SD = 1.135); smoking (by 87.7%; mean = –2.1; SD =

1This percentage is the sum of the percentages of all positive categories o

the scale.

2This percentage is the sum of the percentages of all negative categories o

the scale.

S. STOYANOVA 671

1.324); lonely (by 83.3%; mean = –1.9; SD = 1.296); selfish

(by 62.8%; mean = –1.08; SD = 1.648); misunderstood (by

45.1%; mean = – .88; SD = 1.174); frightened (by 68.5%; mean

= –.86; SD = 1.6); carefree (by 55.3%; mean= –.57; SD =

1.574). Lonely, selfish and frightened are some negative traits

that are parts of the anti-social attitude and feeling of inferiority

(Adler, 1920: pp. 75-76).

Surprisingly, risk—taking was evaluated as a positive quality,

and carefree—as a negative one.

There were no significant differences in respondents’ opin-

ions (p > .05) how typical were for young people from 13 to 19

and from 20 to 25 the qualities and behaviours such as exces-

sive drinking, frightened, optimistic, risk-taking and lonely. For

all other characteristics, the respondents differed significantly

in their attribution to young people from 13 to 19 and from 20

to 25 (p < .05).

The respondents in Bulgaria estimated as typical for 13 to 19

year-old the qualities and the behaviours like fun loving (by

95.5%; mean = 2.6; SD = .776); smoking (by 87.2%; mean =

1.88; SD = 1.601); carefree (by 86.8%; mean = 1.88; SD =

1.351); excessive drinking (by 84%; mean = 1.42; SD = 1.552);

optimistic (by 81.2%; mean = 1.42; SD = 1.522); risk-taking

(by 77.3%; mean = 1.33; SD = 1.472); selfish (by 73.2%; mean

= 1.23; SD = 1.464); self-assured (by 72.1%; mean = 1.08; SD

= 1.496); misunderstood (by 61.6%; mean = 1.06; SD = 1.384);

taking drugs (by 68.7%; mean = .83; SD = 1.482); easygoing

(by 67.3%; mean = .83; SD = 1.477); intelligent (by 67%; mean

= .75; SD = 1.424); capable (by 64.9%; mean = .72; SD =

1.329); enthusiastic (by 65.7%; mean = .7; SD = 1.61); fright-

ened (by 47.3%; mean = .23; SD = 1.512).

The participants in Bulgaria estimated as non-typical for 13

to 19 year-old the qualities and the behaviours such as involved

in social issues (by 51.8%; mean = –.53; SD = 1.734); hard-

working (by 53.2%; mean = –.52; SD = 1.67); lonely (by 39.3%;

mean = –.25; SD = 1.647).

The respondents in Bulgaria estimated as typical for 20 to 25

year-old the qualities and the behaviours like fun loving (by

93.8%; mean = 2.39; SD = .953); capable (by 87.4%; mean =

1.7; SD = 1.023); smoking (by 83.6%; mean = 1.66; SD =

1.593); self-assured (by 64.5%; mean = 1.66; SD = 1.136);

risk-taking (by 87.5%; mean = 1.45; SD = 1.038); intelligent

(by 82%; mean = 1.42; SD = 1.014); easygoing (by 78.9%;

mean = 1.3; SD = 1.159); enthusiastic (by 83.2%; mean = 1.21;

SD = 1.235); excessive drinking (by 80.3%; mean = 1.16; SD =

1.529); hard-working (by 78.3%; mean = 1.15; SD = 1.447);

optimistic (by 78.4%; mean = 1.13; SD = 1.415); involved in

social issues (by 67.9%; mean = .8; SD = 1.576); selfish (by

63.4%; mean = .72; SD = 1.466); taking drugs (by 50%; mean

= .33; SD = 1.521); carefree (by 53.2%; mean = .2; SD = 1.654);

misunderstood (by 36%; mean = .15; SD = 1.185); frightened

(by 46.4%; mean = .13; SD = 1.271).

The participants in Bulgaria estimated as non-typical for 20

to 25 year-old the qualities such as lonely (by 38.7%; mean =

–.32; SD = 1.596).

The participants had positive attitudes towards young people

from 13 to 19 years old (by 59.6%; mean = 5.59; SD = 22.297)

and towards young people from 20 to 25 years old (by 88.6%;

mean = 24.89; SD = 21.897). Their attitude towards young

people from 13 to 19 years old was significantly more positive

than their attitude towards young people from 20 to 25 years

old (t|113| = 8.847; p = .0001). The positive attitude towards

13-19 year-old was related to a positive attitude towards 20 - 25

year-old (r = .445; p = .0001).

The older respondents (more than 20 years old; mean = 16.48;

SD = 25.085) had a more positive attitude towards young peo-

ple from 13 to 19 years old than the younger respondents (up to

20 years old; mean = 3.09; SD = 21.241) did (t|107| = 2.504; p

= .014). The older respondents (more than 20 years old; mean =

24; SD = 26.06) and the younger respondents (up to 20 years

old; mean = 25.86; SD = 21.174) did not differ significantly in

their attitudes towards young people from 20 to 25 (t|107|

= .346; p = .73).

The increase of the participants’ age was related to a more

positive attitude towards 13 - 19 year-old (stepwise regression;

F = 8.361; p = .005; R = .268; R2 = .072; t = 2.892; p = .005; b

= .697), but life satisfaction now (t = .899; p = .37) and ex-

pected life satisfaction in the future (t = 1.379; p = .171) were

not.

The most part of the respondents were satisfied with life (by

61.8%; mean = 4.89; SD = 1.39) and they expected to be sig-

nificantly more satisfied with life in the future (by 91.8%; mean

= 6.02; SD = 1.133; t|109| = 9.691; p = .0001). Their attitude

towards life was mainly optimistic. Life satisfaction now was

related to life satisfaction in the future (r = .549; p = .0001) and

to a positive attitude toward 20 - 25 year-old (r = .222; p = .02).

The increase of the participants’ life satisfaction in the pre-

sent time was related to a more positive attitude towards 20 - 25

year-old (stepwise regression; F = 5.446; p = .021; R = .219;

R2 = .048; t = 2.334; p = .021; b = 3.514), but expected life

satisfaction in the future (t = .745; p = .458) and age (t = –.153;

p = .879) were not.

The older respondents (more than 20 years old; mean = 5.05;

SD = 1.05) and the younger respondents (up to 20 years old;

mean = 4.98; SD = 1.38) did not differ significantly in their life

satisfaction now (t|103| = .223; p = .824). The older respon-

dents (more than 20 years old; mean = 5.9; SD = 1.41) and the

younger respondents (up to 20 years old; mean = 6.06; SD =

1.084) did not differ significantly in their life satisfaction in the

future (t|103| = .555; p = .58).

The education influenced on the attitude towards 13 - 19

year-old (F|4,109| = 2.833; p = .028) and on the attitude to-

wards 20 - 25 year-old (F|4,109| = 3.701; p = .007). The partici-

pants graduated from a lyceum had a more positive attitude

towards 13 - 19 year-old (Mean lyceum = 22.15; SD lyceum =

28.2; Mean high school = 2; SD high school = 21.2; pLSD

= .002) and a more positive attitude towards 20 - 25 year-old

(Mean lyceum = 42.38; SD lyceum =22.1; Mean high school =

24.29; SD high school = 21.1; pLSD = .004) than the partici-

pants graduated from a high school did. The participants gradu-

ated from a lyceum had a more positive attitude towards 20 - 25

year-old than the participants graduated from a university did

(Mean university = 16.18; SD university = 16.8; pLSD = .003).

The respondents graduated from a technical school and these

ones holding a PhD degree were too small in number.

There were not any significant differences between the stud-

ied students and workers in their attitude towards 13 - 19

year-old (F|3,110| = 1.677; p = .176), in their attitude towards

20 - 25 year-old (F|3,110| = 2.595; p = .056). The studied pen-

sioners and unemployed people were too small in number.

There were not any significant differences between the stud-

ied men and women in their attitude towards 13 - 19 year-old

(F|1,111| = 2.348; p = .128), in their attitude towards 20 - 25

year-old (F|1,111| = .349; p = .556).

There were not any significant differences between the mar-

ried and single respondents in their attitude towards 13 - 19

year-old (F|1,112| = 1.511; p = .222), in their attitude towards

20 - 25 year-old (F|1,112| = 3.785; p = .054).

There were not any significant differences between the re-

S. STOYANOVA

672

spondents who did not have any children, the participants having

1 child, and the subjects with 2 children in their attitude to-

wards 13 - 19 year-old (F|2,111| = 1.455; p = .238), in their atti-

tude towards 20 - 25 year-old (F|2,111| = 2.448; p = .091).

Media content analysis revealed that the quoted sources and

news items expressed mainly positive attitudes towards young

people (only positive attitude in 44 news items –27.7%; more

positive than negative attitude in 52 news items –32.7%) than

negative attitudes (only negative attitudes in 12 news items

–7.6%; more negative than positive attitude in 26 news items

–16.4%) and neutral attitudes (in 25 news items –15.7%). 72

news items (45.3%) expressed adults’ concern for young peo-

ple.

The media described family issues in 46 news items in Sep-

tember 2010. The media positive attitudes towards young peo-

ple were related to family issues in 30 news items out of 46

(65.2%).

A young person’s voice was quoted in 31 news items. In 16

news items out of them (51.6%), a young person expressed

positive attitudes towards young people. These positive atti-

tudes towards young people were related to family issues, be-

cause a young person’s voice was quoted in 15 news items

dealing with family issues and in 11 news items out of them

(73.3%), a young person expressed his/her positive attitudes

towards young people.

An example for a positive attitude towards young people re-

lated to family issues is: A businessman is plunged in loans in

order to feed orphans (Telegraph, 15.09.2010).

Some examples for a negative attitude towards young people

related to family issues are: a 21 year-old man from Yambol

has transformed his flat into a home laboratory for production

of meta-amphetamines (Telegraph, 17.09.2010). A grand-

mother and her grand-child cultivate cannabis (Telegraph,

25.09.2010).

Discussion

Regarding the first hypothesis, the increase of the age was

related to a more positive attitude towards younger people from

13 to 19. The older respondents (more than 20 years old) had a

more positive attitude towards young people from 13 to 19

years old than the younger respondents (up to 20 years old) did.

Bulgaria is moving towards individualism, but the collectivistic

values are strengthened with the increase of age and the strong-

est individualism is in the age group of 15 - 18 years old (Pas-

palanova, 1999: p. 138) where—the basic differentiation is not

we-the others, but I versus the others (Hofstede, 2001; Hofstede,

Pedersen, & Hofstede, 2003: p. 110) and individualistic values

of young people could explain this result (Hofstede, 2001;

Hofstede, Pedersen, & Hofstede, 2003: p. 110).

The older respondents (more than 20 years old) and the

younger respondents (up to 20 years old) did not differ signify-

cantly in their attitudes towards young people from 20 to 25.

The elderly people’s attitudes towards young people from 20 to

25 were not strongly positive. Young people in Bulgaria had

positive attitudes towards young people, but not the most posi-

tive ones.

The image of young people reflected by the media was also

predominantly a positive one.

Only educational groups in Bulgaria differed in their atti-

tudes towards young people. The participants graduated from a

lyceum had the most positive attitudes towards 13 - 19 year-old

and towards 20 - 25 year-old.

Regarding the hypothesis that people who feel satisfied are

more likely to have positive attitude towards young people, it

was proved that life satisfaction now and expected life satisfac-

tion in the future were not related to a more positive attitude

towards 13 - 19 year-old, but the increase of the participants’

life satisfaction in the present time was related to a more posi-

tive attitude toward 20 - 25 year-old, and expected life satisfac-

tion in the future was not. The participants in the study felt

more community with 20 - 25 year-old people that was pretty

their own age group.

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