Goal-striving discrepancy stress in urban Filipino men: II. Housing

As part of a larger investigation of social/psychological stress and psychiatric adaptation in urban Manila, efforts were made to study the effects of goal-striving discrepancy stress in housing among Filipino men from different age groups and social classes. Goal-striving discrepancy stress is an organismic state characterized by tension and discomfort due to discrepancies between aspirations and achievements. Several studies have demononstrated that goal-striving discrepancy stress are asociated with psychiatric disorder. The present study focused upon the discrepancies between aspiration and achievements in housing among Filipino men. Housing constitutes one of man's basic problems in urban societies; however, in spite of the fact that housing is related to psychiatric adaptation, relatively few studies have been made of this problem. It is important to recognize that housing has numerous psychological implications for an individual. It is a symbol of social status and social acceptance and greatly influences an individual's view of himself and others. Some investigators have even suggested that housing may be construed as a symbolic representation of the mother-child relationship. For the present investigation, twelve housing characteristics considered to be important to Filipinos e. g., size, cost, location, ownership of land, etc., were derived and ninety-six Filipino males from different age groups and social classes were asked to indicate both their aspiration and their actual achievement for each of the twelve housing characteristics. Goal-striving discrepancies were obtained by subtracting the aspirational endorsements from the achievement endorsements. The discrepancy scores were then correlated with various psychiatric symptom patterns through factor analysis. Results of the investigation revealed profound social class differences in the amount of goal-striving discrepancy stress. ......