The Roles of Social Identity on Students’ Interpersonal Interaction Among Dire Dawa University Students in Eastern Ethiopia: Social Psychological Perspectives

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the roles of social identity on students’ interpersonal interaction among Dire Dawa University Students in Eastern Ethiopia. The participants of the study were 337 undergraduate students selected from five colleges and one institute. The sample of this study was taken through systematic sampling and simple random sampling technique.  To collect data, questionnaires were used. The findings of this study revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between gender identity and interpersonal interaction with correlation value of (r =.473). There is a positive and significant relationship between ethnic identity and interpersonal interaction with a correlation value of (r= .599). There is also a positive significant correlation exist between religiosity and interpersonal interaction among students with a value of (r= .440) was significant at P<0.05 level of significance.  The result also revealed that the three independent variables had the combined effect on interpersonal interaction of students accounted for 50.8% of the variance. Regarding the contribution of each independent variable on the variation of the dependent variable step-wise regression analysis was conducted and the result showed that, gender identity independently contributed R² of 9.5%, ethnicity contributed R² of 35.8%, and religious identity accounted for 5.1 % of the variance on interpersonal interaction.

Keywords: Social Identity; Interpersonal Interaction; University Students; Eastern Ethiopia.