Study of Personality Traits for University Students by Egogram Analysis

Background: Transactional analysis (TA) was developed by Berne and Dusey, and egogram analysis has been performed for long. It has 5 egos including Critical Parent (CP), Nurturing Parent (NP), Adult (A), Free Child (FC) and Adapted Child (AC) and has been utilized in Japan as Tokyo University Egogram (TEG). Authors have continued to educate university students concerning egogram for years. The lecture has been useful and significant for their psychological development in adolescence period. Protocol and Results: Enrolled subjects were 250 university students. They answered TEG questionnaire, calculated and discussed the personality trait. TEG has 29 typical personality pattern which is acceptable in Japan. We analyzed the results of 250 cases. There are six types with higher prevalence in the students than the standard value. They are a) dependent 10.0%, b) hot-tempered 13.2%, c) conflict 6.0%, d) good-hearted 6.8%, e) playboy 4.4%, f) pessimism 6.8%. Discussion and Conclusion: From the point of 5 egos, possible reason for higher ratio was speculated. Some trends were found including low A, CP> NP, AC> FC, in relation to current way of thinking in young generation. This result would become the basic data and would develop further research in this psychological field.


Introduction
In the research of medical science, there is an important field of psychology which is adjacent to our daily life and long life in each person. Transactional analysis (TA) was initiated by Eric Berne as a personality theory [1,2]. It is simple and useful psychotherapy for evaluating preferable human communication and improving the personality trait and growth. It was called egogram, which has three ego states including P (Parent), A (Adult), C (Child). This theory has been succeeded by John M. Dusey. He developed egogram for easy understanding and research, because it has proposed to have five egos, which are Critical Parent (CP), and Nurturing Parent (NP), Adult (A), Free Child (FC) and Adapted Child (AC) [3,4]. It has been used widely for its simple and useful for clinical research and application.
After that, University of Tokyo developed Tokyo University Egogram (TEG) by the psychosomatic group. It has the characteristic aspects consistent with the personality trait in Japanese people [5,6]. TEG has been reliable psychological examination, because of adequate standardization by sufficient statistical investigation [5,6]. On the other hand, the authors have continued the research for TEG so far. We have previously reported the comparison of personality traits in music teachers and learners [7]. Furthermore, we have continued educating the theory and practice of TEG in our University for years [2]. It is one of the important workshops for students, and it has been beneficial for students for providing good opportunity for thinking themselves and improving their personality trends. In this study, we report the TEG data and compare them with previous standard value.

Research Protocol and Results
Subjects enrolled were 250 students at 1 st grade in Tokushima University, Japan. They were freshmen of Faculty of Engineering, and they took the class and workshop by the authors. Our class has been given to the students as special workshop including psychology, culture, medicine, multidisciplinary subjects and so on. This class has been continued for years with our management and research and has provided to the students at 1 st and 4 th grade of 4-year faculty course, and 1 th grade of postgraduate course. Methods were the investigation of personality trait using TEG. It is a highly reliable psychological test, which was based on the concept of transactional analysis [8][9][10]. It has 60 questions and can be answered and evaluated easily in about 10 minutes. By simple 2/4 calculation, TEG can show 5 ego states and personality trait. There are 5 ego in our mind, which are critical parent (CP), nurturing parent (NP), adult (A), free child (FC) and adapted child (AC). For the personality pattern, there are 29 typical personality patterns in TEG, which are acceptable in Japanese culture and lifestyle [5]. Results in this study was shown in Table 1. There is 29 different type of personality trait, and the data was categorized and calculated into each type. This classification has been accepted for Japanese culture and human communication situation. Among these, current data was compared with the previous standard value in more than 4500 Japanese people [5,6]. In this study, 6 type were picked up which frequency was more than the standard value and discussed.

Discussion
There have been several reports concerning the research of egogram. For example, the subjects were obesity, anorexia nervosa, atopic dermatitis, white coat hypertension [11][12][13][14]. The characteristic point of these is that these diseases have been included in the psychosomatic disorders and that applying TEG would be beneficial and helpful for diagnosis, treatment, cure and care. In this study, the egogram patterns in 250 university students of the engineering department were investigated and the results of type and proportion were compared with previous standard data of thousands of Japanese people. Among them, six types were studied that showed more frequent than the standard proportion. They include the types of a) dependent, b) hot-tempered, c) conflict, d) good-hearted, e) playboy, f) pessimism. Consequently, obtained data was analyzed from the biopsychosocial point of view.
Factor CP has a critical and strict attitude, and it showed high levels in 4 types out of 6 types (b,c,e,f). In this case, the direction in which strict attitude is expressed is roughly divided into two situations. If the direction is for yourself, it becomes the type of conflict (c) or pessimism (f). On contrast, if the direction is for someone else, it becomes hot-tempered type (b). In modern society compared with the past, the young generation has tended to express its own opinion. Consequently, when the direction of severity is not for himself but for others, he may comment on criticism against others. Thus, CP factor seems to be transforming the behavior of young generation over the ages. On contrast, low CP were observed in dependent (a) and good-hearted (d) types.
Factor NP was low in 5 types out of 6 types (a,b,c,e,f), indicating that there is rather less feeling of kindness to other people. Growing up in the environment given the mother's love and tenderness, the child can also have a gentle feeling towards people. The low NP possibly shows that the quality of love received from the students' parent's generation is different from the past. Furthermore, there are some facts related to the results of high CP and low NP. One of the recent problems would be the decline of Japanese morals in the young generation. Morals can be explained to be the appropriate attitudes and behaviors for the surrounding people. For this, it can be considered that the parents who brought up the young generation are different in content and balance between father's severity and mother's affection. On contrast, high NP is observed in good-hearted type (d).
Factor A was low in 5 types out of 6 types (a,b,c,d,e), and it was shown that there is little tendency to judge various matters adequately and calmly. The data of this study was obtained in the workshop of the special class by the authors and colleagues about 1 month after the entry of the university. Therefore, it is rather natural that A is rather low because they were just after graduating from high school with the age of 18 or 19. However, through lots of opportunities of authors with the students, we have felt that recent university students seem to be too young mentally and psychologically. One of the reason would be from current social circumstances in the world. Another reason would be from less opportunities to contact with various people for the students

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from elementary school to senior high school. Students have taken various information not from their people around them, but from the internet connection which has been rapidly spread in the world. On contrast, high A is observed in pessimism type (f).
Factor AC is high in 5 types out of 6 types (a,b,c,d,f), and there is a tendency to consider the feelings of the surrounding people. As a background related to this, there has been a popular advice in the several media during our recent daily lives. It is a proposal for the young generation that it is important to read the air in every situation such as school, working places and so on. For that reason, the students were advised to not disturbing the atmosphere of the place, not disturbing the circle, and putting importance on taking cooperative action in several situations. Certainly, the "type of brutality" that was seen while being a small number has not been observed in these days, and students who deviate from the average behavior are getting less visible even in the group life of the university. This is also considered to contribute to the rapid increase of the dependent type (a). On contrast, low AC is observed in playboy type (e).
From the above results, there are overall tendencies of the egogram results in the case of university students in engineering department at the age of 18 and 19 years. It is assumed that CP and AC are higher, NP and A are lower. In the Parent (P) factor, CP tended to be higher than NP. In the Child (C) factor, AC tended to be higher than FC in many cases. These results in young university students seem to be related to the changes in recent social structure and lifestyle habits. In recent years, there have been many problems of communication on the Internet, and our society has found variety of situations with much complaints from younger people in their daily life. This circumstance would be probably related to the trends in psychological aspects of university students. In other words, the characteristic tendency in this study are as follows: i) rather less ability of judgement due to low value of factor A, ii) stronger criticism rather than tolerance due to CP>NP, iii) dependence for others without thinking in himself due to AC>FC. Although there are lots of factors influenced to these tendencies, Internet culture would be deeply involved with this trend and changes in current social situation and in the way of life of university students.
As mentioned above, this study included the research in the field of educational institution of university. Conventionally, TEG has been widely used in psychosomatic medical field. On the other hand, we conducted TEG research in the field of art music and music therapy [7]. Moreover, TEG has been adapted to develop research in the field of occupational medicine. Thus, TEG seems to be utilized and developed in various fields in the future and be contributed to our happiness with smooth communication in the society. In summary, we examined the egogram pattern in 250 university students and compared with the results of the standard type in TEG in Japan. As a result, there was a tendency to change such as low value of factor A, CP> NP, AC> FC, and it was suggested a relation to the way of thinking in young generation. This result becomes the basic data in this field, and further development of future research will be awaited and expected.