SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING IN SLOVAK AND GERMAN YOUTH

On a sample of 132 students (aged 14-18) of one German and one Slovak grammar schools, equalized concerning age and sex, the attributes of subjective well-being were studied (by means of the BDP Questionnaire), as well as the attributes of self-actualization variables (these by means of the SAS scales). With the aid of variant and correlation analyses it was found that in one of the studied self-actualization components - in the extent of self-acceptance and acceptance of the world (SA) - the significant differences between Germans and Slovaks (in the Slovaks' disfavour) are closely related to the influence of nationality. At the same time, it was found that self-acceptance and acceptance of the world do not correlate significantly with the components of existing subjective well-being, but only with the habitual general life satisfaction and with self-evaluation. This finding is interpreted in the sense that a lower extent of self-acceptance and acceptance of the world in the form of dissatisfaction with himself/herself is most probably hidden behind a lower extent of life satisfaction in Slovak adolescents. On the basis of this finding an assumption was pronounced that the habitual subjective well-being is not determined intermediately, by differences in material conditions of life in both of the countries compared; it is related to personality dispositions such as self-acceptance and acceptance of the world, and to the extent of their development. The second difference is that the German adolescents perceive our world in a more realistic way than the Slovak ones; this fact is regarding the complex of the correlation analysis results and results of the Tukey Post Hoc Test (concerned with sexual differences) - in closer relation with the sex than with the nationality.