Psychological Security and Its Relationship with Some Prejudicial Attitudes among Students of the Department of Sociology, College of Humanities

Abstract

The present study aims to identify the levels of both psychological security and prejudicial attitudes among students of the Department of Sociology in the College of Humanities, as well as to examine the relationship between the two variables. To achieve the objectives of the study, the descriptive method was adopted for its suitability to the research problem. The sample consisted of (100) male and female students selected through stratified random sampling from the Department of Sociology/College of Humanities/University of Duhok during the academic year (2024–2025). The researcher adopted the Psychological Security Scale (Abu’rah, 2017) and the Prejudicial Attitudes Scale (Abdul Sahib, 2011). Both instruments consisted of a number of items, each with five response alternatives. The validity and reliability of the instruments were verified by presenting them to a group of experts in the field and incorporating their feedback. The instruments were then administered to the study sample, and the collected data were analyzed statistically using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings revealed several important results, most notably a statistically significant negative correlation between psychological security and prejudicial attitudes among the students. This indicates that students with higher levels of psychological security tend to be less inclined to adopt prejudicial attitudes. Based on these findings, the study recommends the inclusion of concepts such as tolerance, acceptance of others, and cultural diversity within university curricula, in order to foster openness, dialogue, and reduce tendencies toward prejudice.