Introduction

In recent years, behavioral science and psychosomatic medicine have become more crucial for many people living in stressful daily lives. There have been several drastic changes in the world influencing our usual health. From these situation, various practice and research concerning TA has been applied [1]. TA is one of the self-analysis with easy and useful method. After that, the development of TA has brought practical research for egogram with five factors, which are Critical Parent, Nurturing Parent, Adult, Free Child and Adapted Child [2]. From the psychological and psychiatric point of view, egogram research has been related with personality, communication skill, healthy life and feeling happiness in daily life [3].

Successively, practical research of egogram was developed using Tokyo University Egogram in Japan. It was revised for the adequate situation with the personality trend of Japanese person for long years [4]. TEG has been known as reliable psychological test with the standard data from statistical detail investigation [5]. As for the egogram, authors have continued psychosomatic research of egogram for various subjects. They include music therapist, music learner, adults and so on [6]. Furthermore, we developed egogram research for university students [7,8]. During our research, we reported various egogram changes for young generation [9]. In particular, recent changes seem to be related to the internet development in the world [10]. Consequently, authors have continued egogram research for university students. We have investigated and compared our detail data for years. These impressive data and discussion would be described in this article.

Results

The results of current study of the egogram are shown in Table 1. The subjects included 502 university students. The number and percentage of three groups (dominant, inferior and mixed type) in Table 1 was 128 (25.6%), 120 (24.0%) and 254 (50.8%), respectively. We have been investigating the situation of the egograms for university students until now. From these results, six characteristic types from 29 types of TEG patterns were selected which were more frequent than standard prevalence. They are i) dependent, ii) short-tempered, iii) self-centered, iv) conflict, v) solitude, vi) pessimist. According to our previous data, the changing patterns of these 6 types were investigated. There were three periods, which were 2010-2013, 2013-2016, 2016-2019. The tendency of frequency in 6 types was as follows. 1) There are four types of almost same frequency during 10 years out of 6 high-frequency types. They are i) dependent, ii) short-tempered, iv) conflict and vi) pessimist. 2) Increasing frequency types were found during 10 years. They are iii) self-centered type (2.0%→4.0%→5.4%), and v) solitude type (3.2%→5.3%→5.9%). 3) In contrast, decreasing frequency types were found. They are good-hearted type (6.8%→4.7%→3.6%) and playboy type (4.4%→2.9%→2.2%).

Table 1: Results of the egogram types.

Discussion

The egogram test has been useful and significant in the light of psychological aspects. It is related with self-consciousness, behavior, attitude and mutual communication [11]. It can be also helpful medically and socially for better life [12]. There is several meaningful research of egogram for several diseases or various states. They include pregnancy, hypertension, and patients with personal traits, subjects related with organ transplantation, scientific researchers, and others [13-16]. Consequently, egogram has been used for various purposes in medicine, education and economic fields. In this study, a characteristic tendency was consistently observed that the NP factor showed low value levels among the five factors of the egogram.

Out of 6 types with high frequency (a-f), 5 types showed low NP (b-f) were found. This seems to be a characteristic data of modern university students [9]. There has been recently a noticeable decline in overall morality among younger generations in Japan. Among them, some students have not accepted the results of i) very low level of NP factor in the results of the questionnaire, and ii) testing method and interpretation of TEG [10]. Further, there are some students who do not try to realize the low NP or change their current egogram. An impressive datum has been found in the point that there is no willingness to change the current situation. The related question would be whether the person has the ideal image or not. In every year, there are about 20% of university students who answer no need at all to change him for the ideal situation.

Those students are involved in several egogram types, including short-tempered, pessimist, free spirit, dependent and playboy (92-Yoko) [7]. For these circumstances, we cannot decide whether they are the problems of frequency, types, individual character or each way of thinking. Among the 5 factors in the egogram, the NP factor arises from the relationship between mother and child. Therefore, NP seems to present the basis of the mutual connection and communication between people [2]. In the past, NP factor was rather higher than other factors in each generation in Japan [4]. For middle to aged people, NP dominant (kind mother or nursemaid type) has been observed most frequent in Japan as 15.8% [17].

As there have been a variety of changes for westernized and individualism society, the value of NP factor has been decreasing. Further, the prevalence of internet world has also influence the tendency. Furthermore, the NP factor seems to have gradually decreased over the decade of our survey research. In addition to the above, episodes that lower NP are observed in our daily life. There are some examples: 1) when a young person tries to give a seat to an elderly person in the bus or train, the elderly refuses to accept the proposal, 2) when an unconscious women is found and immediately managed for Automated External Defibrillator (AED), such behavior may be regarded as sexual harassment. Those behaviors have been essentially kind actions. However, the episodes that happened to intervene in others with good intentions may be misunderstood and judged to be malicious. Those episodes seem to be rare, but such cases are widely known through the Internet [9]. As a result, the younger generation who come in contact with this information will refrain from intervening in others with kindness.

In the modern Internet system, everyone has the ability to share comments on the articles written by others [18]. Therefore, we can easily know various opinions of others. However, there are many people who agree with certain articles that misunderstand the original behavior of kindness. Younger generations with little experience may have high AC and low A factors. Then, such rare opinions that are observed on the Internet may be evaluated as the majority of opinions from many people [19]. As a general rule, there is a bias in humans who often enter comments on the Internet [18]. There are many types of people who want to assert themselves. Further, the opinions of those who are aggressive and strongly asserted are widely reflected, and their contents are wrong or biased. Therefore, there is a possibility of receiving wrong information. As the factor A shows low level, only the rare information in front of the eyes may be believed, and statistically the majority of standard trend and evaluation are misread. Young readers themselves may decrease NP by agreeing to such biased opinion.

From current data, it was the same as before that there were still many cases of short-tempered types. We will focus on the increase tendency in the types of free spirit and solitude. Regarding the increase of the free spirit type, this seems to be attributed to the fact that students can enter the universities successfully in Japan [20]. The reason would be that students have been greatly repressed by studying for exams up to high school. It lasted for long years for them, and escaping such stressful days made them happy. The daily life at university is completely different from the previous one, with free life as they like. Some examples include living away from their parents, experiencing part-time work, playing with friends until late at night, and so on [21].

Furthermore, how do modern students observe four years in the university? They seem to evaluate it living with a high degree of freedom, rather than acquiring fundamental knowledge of education and culture necessary for future life as a member of society. In this way, it can be speculated that the FC factor of students will be increased and exploded from the educational situation and then FC dominant type will be common after entering the university [20,21]. On the other hand, the solitude type has been belonged to the category of self-centered type, and is a type that sticks to self-assertion [22]. Since the feature is a high factor CP, there is a tendency to strongly criticize others. For this reason, in the Internet exchange sites that have been spreading in recent years, the assertion of biased opinions may continue for long and cause the so-called flame up.

According to many reports on egograms, there is a specific background for the person of solitude type. That is the presence of accumulated dissatisfaction because they have been unable to pass on their self-assertion [22]. From the viewpoint of a suppressed life, there is a common point between the above-mentioned free spirit type and the solitude type currently discussed. In the former, however, the CP is low and the NP is maintained, so that the aggressive behavior has been rare. In the latter, the high CP and the low NP has been important points to cause various inadequate behaviors [10]. By both factors, the direction of releasing the depressed emotion may proceed to the criticism without consideration for others.

Concerning the both types which are free spirit and the solitude types, there is another comparison from different perspectives. It is indeed that both have depressed lives and common reaction to various changes that are more restrictive in the society. However, the different matter is the perception and recognition for the regulations present in the society. In other words, it is considered that some types are derived from the difference, whether regulation or rule is i) important, ii) possible, iii) accepted as possible, iv) impossible and so on [23]. FC factors are generally found at high levels in the subject of university students. For this reason, two groups would be probably present in the students. Group1 includes students who showed increased FC factor by releasing from the suppressed state in the high school. Group 2 includes students who showed stable FC factor level as before. This is difficult to compare because there are no data of egograms a few years ago when they were high school students [24]. In our study, however, there was a case that showed rapid increase of FC factor, after several months of entering the university. From the above, it is suggested that the value of FC may change significantly in a relatively short period of time by enrolling in a free student life [25]. The authors speculate that FC change would be larger when compared to just a few months after entering university [11].

A comparative study can be possible in two groups, one with FC changes and one with no change. Several reasons may be involved in the difference, such as whether the subject can be accustomed to the school life and friends, whether he lives with his parent or only himself, whether some differences are present in club activities or curriculum [24,25]. If the situation permits, more detailed investigations can be possible. Then, interesting results may be obtained if there are basic researches, follow-up research, counseling and so on. In summary, study of egogram type for students showed that 6 types were more than standard data. They are dependent, short-tempered, self-centered, conflict, solitude and pessimist types. During 10 years of our research, self-centered and solitude have been increasing, and good-hearted and playboy types have been decreasing. Current results would be expected to become a fundamental reference for further development of research.

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Corresponding author:

Hiroshi Bando, Medical Research, Tokushima University, Nakashowa 1-61, Tokushima 770-0943, Japan, Tel: +81-90-3187-2485, E-mail: pianomed@bronze.ocn.ne.jp

Citation:

Yokoyama T and Bando H. Characteristic egogram state of younger generation (2019) Edelweiss Psyi Open Access 3: 25-28.

Keywords

Egogram, Tokyo university egogram, Transactional analysis, Personality trait, Psychological development.