Relationship between personality traits, coping style and social anxiety among blind and normal sighted students in universities of Fars province

The purpose of the present research is to study the relationship amongst personality traits, coping style and social anxiety in blind and normal sighted students in Fars province universities in academic year 1386-87. A group of 35 blind and normal sighted students were selected. To assess the rate of social anxiety, the Watson and Friend 58 item questionnaire was used. For the assessment of personality traits NEO-FFI questionnaire and to assess the coping styles, Endler and Parker questionnaire with 48 items was applied. The results showed that there is a meaningful relation between personality traits and social anxiety in blind and normal sighted students. There is also a meaningful relationship between the coping styles and social anxiety in blind students. And also there is a meaningful relation between the coping styles and social anxiety in normal students. There are significant correlations between coping styles and social anxiety. But between personality traits of the blind and normal sighted students, there are also significant differences. Neuroticism factor of the blind students is meaningfully higher than the normal sighted students; also the extraversion, openness and conscientiousness factor of the normal students is meaningfully higher than the blind students. There is no meaningful difference between two groups in agreeableness factor. The findings also showed that in coping styles there is no meaningful difference between the blind and normal sighted students. Regarding the social anxiety there is difference between blind and normal students and also social anxiety in the blind students is more than normal students. These findings exemplify the need for paying more attention to the enhancement of the necessary skills for the blind students.