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Dear Label_Name,

Greetings! I hope you are well.

I am writing on behalf of an international publishing house, Science and Education Publishing, USA (http://www.sciepub.com).

Science and Education Publishing (SciEP) is a multidisciplinary open access publisher of Journals covering the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. All SciEP publications are subject to high-quality peer review, editorial and production processes and are freely available online.

Welcome to the April, 2013 edition of SciEP newsletter, providing monthly summaries of articles on science & education related topics of interest to scientist and professionals. The mission of our journals is to provide an open access forum for publishing new findings on issues pertinent to scientific and academic field. We also invite you to submit original research papers, review articles, short reports, or case studies are considered for publication in our Multidisciplinary Journals.

American Journal of Public Health Research
DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-1-3

The Implementation of a Tele-Homecare System with Service Oriented Architecture and HL7 Message Transmission Standard
Ching-Sung Wang

American Journal of Medical and Biological Research
DOI: 10.12691/ajmbr-1-1-2

The Influence of Ethanol on Pyruvate Kinases Activity in Vivo, in Vitro, in Silico
Lelevich Sergey Vladimirovich, Khrustalev Vladislav Victorovich, Barkovsky Eugene Victorovich, Shedogubova Tatyana Aleksandrovna

American Journal of Medical Sciences and Medicine
DOI: 10.12691/ajmsm-1-1-1

Clinical and Histological Features in Wegener Granulomatosis
Li Cavoli Gioacchino, Passantino Rita, Bono Luisa, Tortorici Calogera, Ferrantelli Angelo, Giammarresi Carlo, Rotolo Ugo

American Journal of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology
DOI: 10.12691/ajidm-1-1-2

The Curse of Lymphatic Filariasis: Would the Continual Use of Diethylcarbamazine Eliminate this Scourge in Papua New Guinea?
Anne Lanham, Lillian Mwanri

We have released issues of some journals on February 2013.
American Journal of Public Health Research
American Journal of Medical Sciences and Medicine
American Journal of Medical and Biological Research
American Journal of Pharmacological Sciences
American Journal of Clinical Medicine Research
American Journal of Nursing Research
American Journal of Cancer Prevention
American Journal of Medicine Studies
American Journal of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology
American Journal of Cardiovascular Disease Research
American Journal of Biomedical Research
American Journal of Mechanical Engineering
American Journal of Microbiological Research
Journal of Preventive Medicine
American Journal of Food and Nutrition
American Journal of Hypertension Research
American Journal of Sports Science and Medicine
Journal of Cancer Research and Treatment
American Journal of Zoological Research
Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology
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Biomedical Science and Engineering

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A Multivariate Analysis Using Mahalanobis Distance on the Big Five Inventory and Dass-21

Dr. Subir Sen, Prof. Birbal Saha*, Dr. Anasuya Adhikari

Professor, Department of Education, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, India

Abstract: The post-pandemic era has observed numerous changes and has gone through multiple stages of evolution. This era has witnessed significant changes in psychological aspects, with a general increase in terms of depression, anxiety and stress. A descriptive survey is carried out in Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, West Bengal, India. Data collected by administering on Big Five Inventory and DASS-21 scales on 600 postgraduate students. A stratified random sampling technique is considered for the collection of data. Comparison between male-female, rural-urban and arts-science students for the variables of Big Five Inventory (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience) and DASS-21 (Stress, Anxiety and Depression) separately and together as a group has been taken up. Significant differences are found for Openness to Experience and Depression when gender is taken as dichotomous variable and t-test is administered. There are no significant differences for all other cases. The study uses Mahalanobis Distance to find out the dynamical nature of variables of Big Five Inventory and DASS-21, with no significant differences between male-female, rural-urban and arts-science students.

Keywords: Comparison, t-test, Mahalanobis Distance, Big Five Inventory and DASS-21, Path Analysis

Received February 24, 2025; Revised March 25, 2025; Accepted April 02, 2025

Citation: Dr. Subir Sen, Prof. Birbal Saha, Dr. Anasuya Adhikari, A Multivariate Analysis Using Mahalanobis Distance on the Big Five Inventory and Dass-21. American Journal of Educational Research, 13 (3). 139-147. January 2025. doi:10.12691/education-13-3-5

1. Introduction

The virus, which has nearly taken over the entire planet, poses a serious threat to human civilization. People are facing difficult circumstances in the majority of the countries due to widespread lockdowns, physical segregation, self-quarantining, etc. People are experiencing mental illness, nervous breakdowns, and a plethora of other psychic disorders as a result. Stress, anxiety, and depression are now very common in this uncomfortable condition. People dealing with mental instability come from all walks of life and anywhere in the world. The People's regular lives were upended, and they now lead turbulent lives with higher levels of stress, anxiety, and sadness. Depression is a type of medical condition that affects our emotions and thoughts badly, whereas anxiety is the intense worry and terror towards many situations in our daily lives [1]. Stress is “a particular relationship between the person and the environment that the person considers to be taxing or exceeding his or her resources and putting his or her well-being at risk” [2]. This dire situation has had a significant impact on the education sector as well. The mode of instruction has changed from offline to online. The digital gap thus prevents many pupils from receiving a regular education. Students are thereby heading straight towards inevitable stress, worry, and sadness. They are at a pivotal moment in their lives.

Psychological research on personalities is especially helpful when analysing psychological variations in different areas of life. The degree to which an individual exhibits certain features at high or low levels is a common conceptualization of personality. A person’s traits are the recurring patterns of their motivations, emotions, ideas, and behaviours in many contexts [3]. In other words, a person with a high trait score will demonstrate psychological states associated with that trait more frequently and to a higher degree than a person with a low trait score. When describing gender differences in personality traits, it is common to consider which gender, on average, scores better on each feature. For instance, it is well knowledge that women are friendlier than men [4,5]. This indicates that, on average, women tend to be more selfless, compassionate, and nurturing than men. The findings do not negate the possibility that men can also feel love, empathy, and generosity; indeed, there may be instances where certain men rate higher than some women on these attributes. The purpose of examining gender differences in personality is to clarify the distinctions in the typical behavior patterns of men and women, as individuals of both genders can experience a range of traits across the entire spectrum. Men and women experience states on opposite ends of the characteristic spectrum, although gender disparities in mean differences do not indicate this; on the contrary, considerable differences might exist together with a high degree of overlap between the distributions of men and women [6]. The creation of a suitable taxonomy of personality traits has been a fundamental goal of personality psychology. Based on trait descriptors found in personality tests and natural language, a five-factor structure has been developed to account for trait covariation. The five factors model or Big Five categorizes traits into the broad domains of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness/ Intellect [7,8,9,10]. Comparison of different variables such as Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression between dichotomous variables is a process of study in education and psychology and many other fields. Several studies are done in this field by applying parametric and non-parametric tests like t-test, Mann-Whitney U Test etc. Mahalanobis Distance is a powerful and strong measure to know the distance between dynamical nature for a group of variables.

2. Literature Review

Personality variations between genders are frequently analysed using the Big Five framework. The Big Five do not, however, cover all of the significant differences in personality traits. Higher-order components, such as the Big Five, are comprised of more specific traits that fluctuate together due to the hierarchical organisation of features. Therefore, gender variations in personality traits can be examined at several levels of resolution in the research of gender differences. The majority of trait research has concentrated on two trait levels: A vast array of highly specialised characteristics, known as facets, are grouped together within the Big Five and (1) the Big Five domains as a whole. Regarding the identification and quantity of facets that comprise the Big Five, there is currently no agreement. Different methods, based on a logical analysis of psychological categories, have identified various sets of aspects or by systematic sampling from the space defined by pairs of Big Five factors [11]. We used an empirically determined level of personality traits that lies between broad domains and narrow aspects in the current investigation. Compared to the Big Five, this level of personality organisation may be able to describe gender differences more precisely by highlighting distinctions that the Big Five tend to hide. Furthermore, compared to current facet models, it offers an experimentally supported taxonomy of lower level qualities that is more likely to provide a sufficient taxonomy of features. One factor should be sufficient to explain the common variance of the facets within a particular Big Five domain if the Big Five comprised the level of the personality hierarchy directly above the facets. But a large behavioural genetic investigation found that the common genetic variance among the features within each domain could only be explained by two different causes [12]. For each of the Big Five dimensions, two phenotypic factors that resembled the genetic factors were discovered in a different study that used factor analysis of 15 distinct facets within each domain [13]. According to this research, each of the Big Five has two distinct but connected facets, indicating a personality level that is above the numerous facet scales but below the broad domains. By examining the factor-score relationships among over 2000 items from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), the research [13] could characterize these traits. The subsequent labels were assigned to the dimensions: volatility and withdrawal denote neuroticism; enthusiasm and assertiveness represent extraversion; openness and intellect signify openness and intellect; diligence and orderliness illustrate conscientiousness; and compassion and politeness indicate agreeableness. Given that gender differences might occasionally be ambiguous at the Big Five level and can occasionally be significant and polar opposites at the facet level, the aspect level of traits may be particularly helpful for examining gender disparities. The aspects offer a more focused and non-arbitrary framework than the Big Five for analysing gender differences at the trait level. Numerous personality traits have been linked to gender differences in the past. The majority of meta-analyses and reviews look at gender variations in personality self-reports on Big Five and component aspects surveys [4,5,14].

Persons who live in rural surroundings typically have lower levels of subjective well-being and higher levels of loneliness than persons who live in urban contexts, according to a sizable body of research that has explored disparities between rural and urban settings in many elements of subjective well-being [15,16]. Few research, meanwhile, have looked into personality or psychological well-being distinctions between rural and urban areas. The most similar studies have demonstrated consistent relationships between personality traits at the regional level and population density, like Openness to Experience – more densely populated areas tend to be higher in Openness to Experience, for example [17,18]. Furthermore, to our knowledge, only one study has looked at the variations in psychological well-being between rural and urban areas. [19] investigated the differences in psychological well-being aspects between urban and rural teenagers in the Indian state of Haryana. The results showed that adolescents in urban areas typically exhibited greater levels of psychological well-being than those in rural areas. The scope of our present understanding of personality characteristic and psychological wellbeing variations between rural and urban areas is restricted.

To improve academic advice, two lines of psychological study have been conducted. An examination of the causes of students’ academic achievement was done in the first line, such as cognitive abilities, personality, motivation, etc. [20]. Group variations in these same characteristics among students pursuing various academic disciplines have been studied in the second line.The Big Five personality traits Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness have been examined recently to see if distinct academic specialisations draw distinct kinds of students [21]. The idea that a student’s personality may determine the best “fit” between their major and school is a common justification used in this research. This theory has been advanced by Holland [22] among others. Should it be true that a student’s personality makes certain academic majors more appropriate for them than others, this information would be helpful for academic counselling and advising as well as for teaching in general.

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis created the Mahalanobis Distance during his studies on racial similarities, and it was initially released in 1936 [23]. The Mahalanobis Distance was used in research [24] to examine academic stress, mathematical anxiety, and mathematical self-efficacy in two groups of upper secondary school pupils. The researchers [25] carried out a study on Post Graduate Students on depression, anxiety, and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The present study Comparison between male-female, rural-urban and arts-science students for the variables of Big Five Inventory (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience) and DASS-21 (Stress, Anxiety and Depression) separately (by administering t-test) and together as a group (by calculating Mahalanobis Distance) is done. Significant differences are found for Openness to Experience and Depression when gender (male-female) is taken as dichotomous variable and t-test is administered.

3. Objectives

After the close study of the available literature we have taken up the following objectives:

1.To compare the Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression between male and female students;

2.To compare the Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression between rural and urban students;

3.To compare the Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression between arts and science students;

4.To compare the dynamical nature of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression considered together as a group of variables between male and female students;

5.To compare the dynamical nature of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression considered together as a group of variables between rural and urban students;

6.To compare the dynamical nature of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression considered together as a group of variables between arts and science students.

4. Hypotheses

Considering the above mentioned objectives, following hypotheses may be considered:

From objective 1 we get eight hypotheses as follows:

H₀₁: ‘There is no significant difference in Extraversion between male and female students’.

H₀₂: ‘There is no significant difference in Agreeableness between male and female students’.

H₀₃: ‘There is no significant difference in Conscientiousness between male and female students’.

H₀₄: ‘There is no significant difference in Neuroticism between male and female students’.

H₀₅: ‘There is no significant difference in Openness between male and female students’.

H₀₆: ‘There is no significant difference in Stress between male and female students’.

H₀₇: ‘There is no significant difference in Anxiety between male and female students’.

H₀₈: ‘There is no significant difference in Depression between male and female students’.

From objective 2 we get eight hypotheses as follows:

H₀₉: ‘There is no significant difference in Extraversion between rural and urban students’.

H₀₁₀: ‘There is no significant difference in Agreeableness between rural and urban students’.

H₀₁₁: ‘There is no significant difference in Conscientiousness between rural and urban students’.

H₀₁₂: ‘There is no significant difference in Neuroticism between rural and urban students’.

H₀₁₃: ‘There is no significant difference in Openness between rural and urban students’.

H₀₁₄: ‘There is no significant difference in Stress between rural and urban students’.

H₀₁₅: ‘There is no significant difference in Anxiety between rural and urban students’.

H₀₁₆: ‘There is no significant difference in Depression between rural and urban students’.

From objective 3 we get eight hypotheses as follows:

H₀₁₇: ‘There is no significant difference in Extraversion between arts and science students’.

H₀₁₈: ‘There is no significant difference in Agreeableness between arts and science students’.

H₀₁₉: ‘There is no significant difference in Conscientiousness between arts and science students’.

H₀₂₀: ‘There is no significant difference in Neuroticism between arts and science students’.

H₀₂₁: ‘There is no significant difference in Openness between arts and science students’.

H₀₂₂: ‘There is no significant difference in Stress between arts and science students’.

H₀₂₃: ‘There is no significant difference in Anxiety between arts and science students’.

H₀₂₄: ‘There is no significant difference in Depression between arts and science students’.

From objective 4 we get the following hypothesis:

H₀₂₅: ‘There is no significant difference in dynamical nature of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression considered together as a group of variables male and female students’.

From objective 5 we get the following hypothesis:

H₀₂₆: ‘There is no significant difference in dynamical nature of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression considered together as a group of variables rural and urban students’.

From objective 6 we get the following hypothesis:

H₀₂₇: ‘There is no significant difference in dynamical nature of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression considered together as a group of variables arts and science students’.

Theoretical details

Ø Independent Sample t-test

Independent sample t-test is a test applied for two variables. It is a well-known test for comparison between two independent variables especially in educational measurement. Here, for each dichotomous variable (male-female, rural-urban, arts-science) eight t-tests are administered for extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, stress, anxiety, and depression separately.

Ø Mahalanobis Distance

Human nature or behavior cannot be expressed by single property/variable. It may be considered as a sum of properties/variables and difference in dynamical nature of such variables is an important measure of comparison. As a result, when extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, stress, anxiety, and depression are considered together as a measure of the present status of the students, it becomes more meaningful.

Let us consider

Which is considered for dichotomous variables (Male vs Female, Rural vs Urban or Arts vs Science) consist of eight variables viz. extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, stress, anxiety, and depression. So, is 8X1 matrix and represent the transpose of and it is 1X8 matrix.

Denoting as pooled variance-covariance matrix, we get

(2.1)

Where is the first set of variance-covariance matrix (as for example male students) for the variables extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, stress, anxiety, and depression. Similarly, for second set. Here, represents the sample size of first sample and second sample respectively.

Now Mahalanobis Distance (MD) may be defined as

(2.2)

From existing literature, it may be opined that if MD is less than 1, difference in dynamical character of several variables when considered for two sets of data is insignificant. When MD is greater than or equal to 1, difference in dynamical character of several variables when considered for two sets of data is significant.

5. Methodology

Descriptive survey method is applied to curry out the research.

Tools used

n Big Five Inventory of Personality (BFI) by [26]

n Depression Anxiety & Stress Scales by [27]

Population: Post-graduate students of Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia, West Bengal, India.

Sample and Sampling: Data collected from 600 samples by stratified random sampling.

Statistical Measure:Appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics (t-test and Mahalanobis Distance) are used for this research work.

6. Results and Discussions

Figure 1. Path diagram for latent variables and variables of Big Five Inventory and DASS-21

Path diagram is represented by Figure 1. Effect sizes are moderate between variables of Big Five inventory except extraversion. Similar results found in case of DAS and c2. Factor covariances represented shows that between c1 and c2 is significant and negative. As c1 and c2 are latent variables for Big Five Inventory and DAS respectively, they represent opposite qualities with the increase of numerical values as measured according to the norms of respective variables and scales. It is observed that residual variances are of moderate value which refers to the variance in a model that cannot be explained by the variables in the model are not very large. As a result, this consideration Big Five Inventory and DAS together is a valuable construction.

• Comparison between different variables

There are five components of personality viz. Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness. Stress, Anxiety and Depression are also three such variables considered with personality factors to test the hypotheses H₀₁ to H₀₈. Here, t-test has been adopted for comparison. Results of t-tests are listed in Table 1. Here, significant differences are found in the cases of Openness (H₀₅)and Depression (H₀₈). As a result, H₀₅ and H₀₈ are rejected. So alternative hypotheses “There is a significant difference in Openness between male and female students”and“There is a significant difference in Depression between male and female students”areaccepted. For both the cases mean scores for male is significantly greater than their female counterpart. Other null hypotheses H₀₁, H₀₂, H₀₃, H₀₄, H₀₆ and H₀₇ are accepted. That implies that Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Stress and Anxiety are independent of gender.

Table 1. t-test for different psychological variables between Gender, Residence and Stream of study

All the null hypotheses H₀₉, H₀₁₀, H₀₁₁, H₀₁₂, H₀₁3, H₀₁₄, H₀₁₅ and H₀₁₆ are accepted. That implies that Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression are independent of residence.

Table 2. Mean scores for Gender, Residence and Stream of study

Table 3. Variance-Covariance Matrix for Gender, Residence and Stream of study

All the null hypotheses H₀₁₇, H₀₁₈, H₀₁₉, H₀₂₀, H₀₂₁, H₀₂₂, H₀₂₃ and H₀₂₄ are accepted. That implies that Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression are independent of stream.

• Comparison regarding dynamical nature of the variables

By using Table 2 and 3 and by applying equations (2.1 and 2.2), we get MD which are listed in Table 4.

Now, let us consider objective 4 and thecorresponding hypothesis H₀₂₅. Here, calculated value of MD is 0.5301 which is less than 1. That implies our null hypothesis H₀₂₅ is accepted. As a result, no significant difference in dynamical nature of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression considered together as a group of variables between male and female students is confirmed.

Recall objective 5 and the corresponding hypothesis H₀₂₆. Here, calculated value of MD is 0.2024 which is again less than 1. That implies our null hypothesis H₀₂₆ is accepted. As a result, no significant difference in dynamical nature of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression considered together as a group of variables between rural and urban students is established.

Lastly, recall objective 6 and the corresponding hypothesis H₀₂₇. Here, calculated value of MD is 0.2908 which is again less than 1. That implies our null hypothesis H₀₂₇ is accepted. As a result, no significant difference in dynamical nature of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety and Depression considered together as a group of variables between rural and urban students is established.

Table 4. MD for Gender, Residence and Stream of study

Conclusion

The comparison between dichotomous variables revealed that:

1. From the present study it was found that for Extraversion there is no significant difference between male and female students. The result is supported by [28,29] but not supported by [4,5,14,30].

2. For Agreeableness it was found that there is no significant difference between male and female students. The result is not supported by [4,5,14,28,29,30,31,32].

3. For Conscientiousness it was found that there is no significant difference between male and female students. The result is supported by 28, but not supported by [4,5,29,30,32].

4. For Neuroticism it was found that there is no significant difference between male and female students. The result is not supported by [5,14,26,29,30,32].

5. For Openness to Experienceit was found that there is significant difference between male and female students. Male students were found to be more open than the female students. This result contradicts the findings of [29,30,32].

6. For Stress it was found that there is significant difference between male and female students. The result is supported by [25,33,24], but the result is not supported by [33,36,37].

7. For Anxiety the result is supported by [25,33,34] but the result is not supported by [35,37].

8. Differences are found for Depression and it is found that male students have significantly high Depression.The result is supported by [33,35] but not supported by [25,35,37].

9. No significant differences were found between the rural and urban regarding Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience, Stress, Anxiety and Depression. The result was found to contradict the following studies [34,38,39].

10. No significant differences were found between the Science and arts students regarding Extraversion. The findings agree with the findings of [38,41,42,43], while disagree with [44,45].

11. No significant differences were found between the Science and arts students regarding Agreeableness. The findings agree with the findings of [40,43,44], while disagree with [40,41,45].

12. No significant differences were found between the Science and arts students regardingConscientiousness. The findings agree with the findings of [43,42,44], while disagree with [40,41,45].

13. No significant differences were found between the Science and arts students regardingNeuroticism. The findings agree with the findings of [21,41] [42,43,44,45], while disagree with Clariana [40].

14. No significant differences were found between the Science and arts students regardingOpenness to Experience. The findings agree with the findings of [43,45], while disagree with [29,40,41,44].

15. No significant differences were found between the Science and arts students regardingStress. The findings disagree with the findings of [34,37].

16. No significant differences were found between the Science and arts students regardingAnxiety. The findings disagree with the findings of [34,37].

17. No significant differences were found between the Science and arts students regardingDepression. The findings disagree with the findings of [34,37].

18. There is no significant difference in dynamical nature among the variables Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety, Depression, when considered together as a branch for the dichotomous variables; male-female, rural-urban and science-arts. The findings agree with the findings of [24,46].

Personality factors are related to Depression, Anxiety and Stress for different Dichotomous Variables like, Gender, Residence and Stream of Study. In the present study, when single variables are compared for different Dichotomous Variables, they highlight both similarity and differences with the existing literature. Individual variables cannot express the totality of the behaviour when they are measured separately between Dichotomous Variables. To represent the totality of the behaviour, we should consider all the variables together as a measure. When Mahalanobis Distance is used as a measure of Multivariate analysis for a group of variables namely, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness, Stress, Anxiety, Depression, no difference is observed. This is supported by existing literature.

As sample consist of PG level students, it would be very difficult to define and work with different societies. For present study, 8 variables are considered viz. Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, Stress, Anxiety and Depression but only 2 variables Openness to Experience and Depression significantly differ between male and female students. Others 6 out of 8 variables showed insignificant differences. So, differences were not totally gender independent. Results are displayed in Table 1.

From Table 1 it is evident that all 8 variables are independent of residence and stream. The sample collected from SKBU was a mixed cultural sample (consist of different religion, different income group, different location of West Bengal and others states of India).

Funding: There is no funding for this research work.

Disclosure Statement: No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

References

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