THE IMPACT OF BASIC TRUST ON A PERSON’S PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH

Abstract

The article purpose is to reveal how basic trust affects a person’s psychological health, and its manifestations such as psychological quality of life, subjective feeling of happiness, psychological well-being, etc. Methodology: 220 respondents took part in the research, the average age was 33 years, by profession, they were students and specialists in various specialties, 180 women, 40 men. To study an attitude to trust, the “trust” scale from the Wiesbaden Questionnaire for Positive Psychotherapy and Family Therapy (WIPPF) developed by N. Peseschkian and X. Deidenbach was used. The following methods were chosen to study various aspects of psychological health: Bradburn Affect Balance Scale; Satisfaction with Life Scale of E. Diner; Ryff Scales of Psychological Wellbeing; the Subjective Happiness Scale of S. Lubomyrsky; the Questionnaire studying quality of an individual’s life developed by O.A. Chikhantsova; the Sense of Coherence Scale of A. Antonovsky. Results and conclusions: It was found that the attitude to trust was positively, at an average level, correlated with indicators of psychological health, as it is understood in a number of schools, namely: with positive affective balance, life satisfaction, subjective happiness, quality of life, psychological well-being. From this, we can conclude that trust, faith in the benevolence of the world, other people, and self-belief are the foundation of an individual’s psychological health, although it is far from the only factor affecting such health. Trust is a basic characteristic that is formed to a greater extent in the early stages of ontogenesis, while a person’s psychological health and its manifestations such as psychological quality of life, subjective feeling of happiness, psychological well-being are complex, integral characteristics that are influenced by very many factors. The obtained result shows that trust affects a person’s resulting feeling about the course of his/her life; trust supports a person’s subjective sense of happiness and psychological well-being. The only result that was not consistent with the previous ones was an absent correlation between trust and indicators of the sense of coherence, which requires additional research and can become a perspective for further exploration.