The positive emotions: Positive perception and social well-being levels of the university students

ABSTRACT


INTRODUCTION
When we look at the views in which the origins of positive psychology lie, it is possible to go as far as Aristotle's views that the highest good for humanity is happiness.After Aristotle, there is a utilitarian approach that deals with happiness and even makes the first attempt to measure happiness [1].After this attempt, the section on emotions in William James' book can be considered related to positive psychology [2].It has affected the positive psychology as well as the current.As a matter of fact, Adler foreshadows the strengths of individuals.The psychology described movement which he called individual psychology, which he took to the fore, as an optimistic and happy science [3].
The positive psychology can be defined as a scientific field that is concerned with what is positive, contributing to the individual's attachment to life and taking his life to a better position than he is [4].Positive psychology focuses on the strengths rather than the weaknesses of the individual, and the solution power rather than the problem.Approach positive psychology focuses on the healthy person model, which is compatible with the World Health Organization's definition of a healthy person, against the disease model mentioned above.According to Hefferon and Boniwell [2], reducing or eliminating the individual's  ISSN: 2089-9823 J Edu & Learn, Vol.17, No. 4, November 2023: 677-684 678 discomfort is not considered sufficient; it is considered important for the individual's development, increased well-being, and quality of life.In other words, the individual should exist with his/her strengths, which can not only go from minus to neutral, but also go up to pluses.This fact as there is evidence that positive psychology practices work in individuals diagnosed with depression as well as in normal individuals.From this point of view, positive psychology should not only be interpreted as increasing the well-being of people who do not have any problems.Positive psychology also provides support for the reduction or elimination of the problem of people with disabilities [5].
According to Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi [6] consider positive psychology at three levels (subjective, individual, and group).They consider this part in three dimensions, stating that the subjective level is about valuable subjective experiences.These are the past dimension, which includes life satisfaction and well-being, the present dimension, which includes flow and happiness, and the future dimension, which includes hope and optimism.Second, the individual level relates to personal traits such as wisdom, originality, forgiveness, courage, and love.Finally, the group level is related to citizenship skills such as tolerance, responsibility and helpfulness.As can be seen, while positive psychology deals with the individual in all its aspects, it also touches upon the individual's relationship with the group he/she is in, that is, with the society.
Relations among people reveal its importance day by day [7].For this reason, social well-being plays an important role for people.The low level and height of the individual in self-expression will lead to the formation of harmonious or incompatible relationships [8].Many studies reveal that there is an important relationship between positive emotions and positive perception, and that these emotions also play an important role in interpersonal relations [9].The human who is essentially sociable, needs to behave and wait for the individual in love and compassion [10].The concept of well-being refers to the most appropriate level of spiritual experience and functionality.This situation, which attracts the attention of every individual in daily life, is also the subject of intensive scientific research [11].The concepts that explain the level of wellbeing of students according to psychological processes are subjective well-being and psychological wellbeing.On the other hand, well-being has been examined in terms of different variables and different contexts, especially in areas such as social work and sociology [12].
Ryffand and Lee [13] stated that psychological well-being cannot be evaluated from a single dimension and discussed psychological well-being in six dimensions.Consideration of a person's life as meaningful is one of these dimensions.The aim of life is personal development, which includes having a sense of ongoing growth, decision-making freedom, self-acceptance, environmental dominance, and positive interpersonal relationships.
From the perspective of positive psychology, the concept of subjective well-being can also be expressed as happiness.Subjective well-being can be defined as how individuals evaluate their lives cognitively and emotionally [14].Research by Myers and Diener [15] consider subjective well-being as experiencing a lot of positive emotions, experiencing less negative emotions, and a general state of satisfaction, that is, getting satisfaction from life.Research by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi [6] talk about three origins of happiness, they are: i) The good life that provides satisfaction; ii) The good life, which includes flow and assimilation; and iii) The self.Three origins of happiness are: i) The good life that provides satisfaction; ii) The good life, which includes flow and assimilation; and iii) The meaningful life, which includes devotion to something beyond one's self.
The second and third parts can be seen under eudomonic happiness.Those who act in the hedonic dimension, that is, in the dimension of subjective well-being, reach positive emotions in a shorter time; in the eudomonic dimension, that is, in the dimension of psychological well-being, meaning is added to life in a longer time.Meaningful life, which includes dedication to something further.The second and third parts can be seen under eudomonic happiness.Those who act in the hedonic dimension, that is, in the dimension of subjective well-being, are more while reaching positive emotions in a short time; in the eudomonic dimension, that is, in the dimension of psychological well-being, meaning is added to life in a longer time [16].
Sport is important in terms of indicator of the well-being and cultural advancement in contemporary societies.Its impact spans across all facets of social existence.Consequently, sports represent a communal behavior that fosters modernization, cohesion, progress, and societal acknowledgment.It achieves this by contributing to favorable advancements in individuals' lives and instilling in society a robust, healthconscious structure, all while establishing connections with other key social institutions.Hence, comprehending the societal roles of sports in both individual lives and the larger community requires an exploration of its social dimensions [17].
The positive emotions: Positive perception and social well-being levels of the university … (Veysel Temel) 679

MATERIAL AND METHOD
In this part, research method, demographical findings of participants, data collection process, data collection tools and data analysis.This study aimed to students' positive perception levels on their social well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic period.A survey method which focuses on current situation of a subject matter was utilized for this study [18].

Study group
The research group consists of 126 male (53.4%) and 110 female (46.6%), a total of 236 students who studied at the Department of Physical Education and Sports in Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey University School of Physical Education and Sports, Turkey between March and May 2020 during the COVID-19 quarantine period.The research scale was applied on a voluntary basis by being contacted on e-mail during the staying at home.All studies were carried out on a voluntary basis.

Data collection tools and process
Provided below are the data collection tools required to accomplish the predefined research objectives.Data were collected from participants who accepted to participate the study via e-mail.There were two scales.They were positive perception scale (hocam ölçeği geliştiren ve Türkçe ye adapte edenlerin isimleri gerekli) and social well-being scale (hocam ölçeği geliştiren ve Türkçe ye adapte edenlerin isimleri gerekli) [11], [19], [20].

Personal information form, positive perception scale and social well-being scale
In order to gather data regarding participants' personal characteristics and establish the research's independent variables, the researcher formulated an information form containing four items, they are gender, father's education, sports and exercise engagement, and challenges encountered in assessing leisure time.Positive perception scale is developed by and adapted to Turkish language results of confirmatory factor analysis showed that there were three-dimensional fit (positive perception of self, positive perception of the past, positive perception of human nature) with the following fit indices.The items of the scale demonstrated that factors loads were ranging from 57 to 95.Overall results indicated that scale is valid and reliable.Social well-being scale (SWBS) consists of 15 items.It is prepared by 7-likert scale (1: strongly disagree, 7: strongly sgree).A participant can gain 15 points as the lowest and 105 points as the highest.The higher score means higher social well-being for participants.Confirmatory factor analysis results of spiritual well-being scale or SWBS showed that the scale is valid and reliable.

Analysis of data
While determining the characteristics of the data, descriptive statistics, frequency and percentage distributions were made.Since the data had a normal distribution, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) analyzes were used.Finally, Pearson product moment correlation analysis test was used to reveal the relationship between them.According to Table 1, the skewness-kurtosis normality test results for the overall positive perception scale, the subscales of positive perception (positive perception of people from the past, positive perception of human nature, and positive self-perception), and the social well-being scale range from -1.5 to +1.5, indicating that it is appropriate for a normal distribution.

Personal features of study group
The distribution of the sample group participating in the study's demographic characteristics was shown in Table 2.This proportion indicates that women make up 46.6% of the research participants, while males make up 53.4%.There are 58.1% of the participants participate in sports, while 41.9% do not, making literacy rates among the participants 8.9%, primary school graduation rates 43.2%, secondary school graduation rates 15.7%, high school graduation rates 24.2%, and undergraduate degree/university graduation  ISSN: 2089-9823 J Edu & Learn, Vol.17, No. 4, November 2023: 677-684 680 rates 8.1%.When asked how they would rate their free time, 14.8% said they often had trouble, 62.7% said they occasionally had trouble, and 22.5% said they never did.In Table 3, students' mean scores for positive perception, mean scores for sub-dimensions of positive perception, and mean scores for social well-being were examined.The result of this study is that the general mean scores of the students who participated in the study are mean=5.72 on the scale of positive perception, mean=5.48 on the subscale of positive perception, mean=5.55 on the scale of positive perception related to human nature, and mean=5.55 on the scale of positive self-perception.It is considered to be above the mean level with mean=5.09.For this reason, it can be said that students have positive perception of past time, positive perception of human nature, positive self-perception and positive self-perception among the sub-dimensions of positive perception scale.The social well-being of the students was investigated.As a result of this research, the social wellbeing scale of the students included in the research was included in the Avg.It is classified as medium with a mean of 4.24=.For this reason, it can be said that the social well-being of the students is at a medium level.According to MANOVA findings in Table 4, no significant interaction was found between the independent variables (F(28,733,349)=0.75).The main effects findings were examined.
In the analysis of Table 5, there was a significant difference between the independent variables' difficulties valuing leisure time and the dependent variables' positive view (F(5.90)=3.26).To ascertain where there is a significant difference in the size of positive perception from the dependent variables with difficulty in rating leisure from the independent variables, a Bonferonni follow-up test was carried out.When the results of this test were analyzed, it was shown that participants who "sometimes" had "difficulty" rating their free time had a lower degree of positive perception than those who did not "never" have "difficulty".
Positive opinion of previous time and difficulty filling free time were significantly different (F(5.90)=3.26).As a result, those who "sometimes" and "always" found it challenging to evaluate their free time had lower positive time levels than those who did not "never" find it challenging.A significant difference was found between difficulty in evaluating leisure time and positive perceptions of human nature (F(5.90)=3.26).Accordingly, participants who "sometimes" and "always" had difficulty evaluating their free time had lower perceptions of positive perceptions of human nature compared to participants who "never" had "difficulty".A significant difference was found between difficulty in valuing leisure time and positive self-perception (F(5.90=3.26).Accordingly, participants who "sometimes" and "always" had difficulty evaluating their leisure had lower levels of positive self-perception compared to participants who did not "never" have difficulty.
There was a significant difference between difficulty in assessing their leisure time and the social wellbeing dimension (F(5.90)=3.26).Accordingly, participants who "always" had difficulty in estimating their free ISSN: 2089-9823  The positive emotions: Positive perception and social well-being levels of the university … (Veysel Temel) 681 time were found to have lower social well-being than those who "never" had "difficulty".However, no statistically significant difference was found between other dependent variables and independent variables.As can be seen from the Table 4, there is a statistically significant positive p>01 value between the results of the Pearson perception moment correlation analysis.Which was conducted to determine the relationship between the positive perception scale scores from the positive perception scale subdimensions and the social well-being scale test scores (r=373).Statistically, between the scores obtained from the positive perception scale subdimensions and the social well-being scale test scores, the statistical representation between the scores was p<01.As a result of Pearson product-moment correlation analysis carried out to ascertain the association between the test scores of the positive well-being scale and the scores  ISSN: 2089-9823 J Edu & Learn, Vol.17, No. 4, November 2023: 677-684 682 obtained from the sub-dimensions of the positive perception scale (r=246).A favorable and positive association on the ground (r=236) was found to exist statistically.
As can be seen from the Table 6, there is a statistically significant positive p>.01 level between the scores obtained from the Pearson perception moment correlation analysis conducted to determine the relationship between the positive perception scale scores from the positive perception scale sub-dimensions and the social well-being scale test scores (r=.373).Statistically, between the scores obtained from the positive perception scale sub-dimensions of the positive perception scale sub-dimensions and the scores of the social well-being scale test, the statistical plot between the scores was p<.01.As a result of Pearson product moment correlation analysis conducted to determine the relationship between the scores obtained from the positive perception scale sub-dimensions of the positive perception scale sub-dimensions and positive well-being scale test scores (r=.246).A favorable and significant relationship on the ground (r=.236) was found, statistically significant at p>.05.

DISCUSSION
An attempt has been made to discuss the results of the research.According to this discussion, it is understood that some studies support the results of the current study and some studies do not.According to Temel and Karharman's [21] on handball players indicate parallelism with the current work since players have high levels of positive self-perception, positive past-time perception, and positive perception of human nature.The fact that ice hockey players have performed above the mean, in according to Veysel and Kazim's [22] analysis on super league players, supports the findings of the present study.
According to Keyes [23] on teachers, teachers are considered to have a high level of social wellbeing.According to by Kaya [12], the level of social well-being of university students is above the mean level.According to Tekin [24] assumes that the level of social well-being of university students is above the medium level.It can be said that these studies support the present study.According toYurcu et al. [25], it can be said that the effect of sports on the person in social terms is quite good.In their work on hotel employees, it was found that employees generally have a low level of social well-being.It is understood that this result is not consistent with the current study.

CONCLUSION COVID-19
The results of the social well-being scale (SRS) and positive perceptions scale (PAS) administered to the students during the quarantine/home leave are reported, together with justifications for them.According to the findings, when the participants' positive perception levels were looked at, it was discovered that both the overall and sub-dimension positive perception levels were greater than the mean level.On the social well-being scale, it was discovered that their average score fell somewhere in the middle.This is due to the fact that both the mean score on the positive perception scale and its mean score are identical.There was no statistically significant interaction between the independent variables, according to the MANOVA results.When the main effects results were considered, it was discovered that there was a substantial difference between the independent variables' difficulty in estimating leisure time and the dependent variables' dimension of positive perception.The individuals who "sometimes" had "difficulty" assessing their free time had a lower level of positive assessment than the participants who "never" had difficulty, it was found.
There was a great gap between being unable to judge leisure time and having a positive view of the past.Therefore, those who had "sometimes" and "always" problems assessing their free time had a lower level of positive time level compared to those who had no "never" problems.Positive evaluations of time spent and the challenges of assessing leisure time are very different.Participants who "sometimes" or "always" found it challenging to estimate their free time spent less time actively than participants who "never" did.There was a significant difference between the challenge of assessing leisure time and the favorable view of human nature.Between finding it difficult to evaluate leisure time and having a favorable self-perception, there was a significant difference.In contrast to those who have "never" experienced trouble, those who report experiencing "sometimes" or "always" difficulty evaluating their free time have poorer ISSN: 2089-9823  The positive emotions: Positive perception and social well-being levels of the university … (Veysel Temel) 683 perceptions of the positive aspects of human nature.Participants who reported "sometimes" and "always" having trouble judging their leisure time showed lower levels of positive self-perception than those who had no "never" difficulties.It was discovered that there was a hardly discernible difference between the difficulty of measuring leisure time and social well-being.Accordingly, participants who "always" found it challenging to evaluate their leisure time had lower levels of social well-being than participants who "never" did.The differences between the other dependent and independent variables, however, were not statistically significant.The other dimensions were found to have no statistically significant differences.Since there are not any relevant research in the field, it is assumed that the author's unpublished work supports the current study.This is in accordance with a study from Temel University entitled 'The Effect of Positive Perception Levels of Academicians on Psychological Vulnerability'.

Table 1 .
Skewness/kurtosis normality test regarding general positive perception, sub-dimensions and social well being scale of students participating in the research

Table 2 .
Distribution of the sample group participating in the research regarding demographic features

Table 3 .
Descriptive statistics on social well-being scale used in the research

Table 5 .
Main effects

Table 6 .
Pearson moment correlation analysis results