Understanding Civil Behavior from Jakarta Urban Citizens: Study

on High and Low Education Level Group

Nudzran Yusya and Amarina Ashar Ariyanto

Faculty of Psychology, University of Indonesia, Indonesia

Keywords: Civil Behavior, High Education Level Group and Low Level Education Level Group, Perception

Abstract: This study aimed to describe the perception of civil behavior – especially responsibility, politeness and

manners, respect, and empathy - among high and low education level group. One hundred and thirty eight

people with high (diploma, undergraduate, and graduate level) and low education (elementary and junior high

school) background in Jakarta participated in the study. The main study questionnaire was based on the result

of preliminary research to 80 students to explore the meaning of civil behavior. In the main study, participants

ranked behaviours which mostly describe citizen’s responsibility, politeness and manners, respect, and

empathy. Chi- square analysis revealed no difference between the two groups regarding the behavior that best

described the social responsibility of citizens. However, there was a significant difference between high and

low education level group regarding behavior that best described politeness and manners, respect, and

empathy. These findings confirmed the diverse meaning of civility and behavior associated to civility,

especially as politeness, respect and empathy among different education background groups. This study can

serve as benchmark for civil behavior in Jakarta, as well as a reference for future policies regarding civility in

urban areas. Items used in future studies are expected to be more easily understood by participants.

1 INTRODUCTION

In this study, the city of Jakarta became the

highlight because of rapid changes and

development that impact the lives of its citizens.

The complexity of Jakarta might affect the

perception of civil behavior among citizens of the

city, how they process, organize and interpret

information. Boyd (2006) explains that in everyday

life in urban cities, civil behavior is recognized

easily but not as easy to define. Based on

researchers observation, there are many various

answers from Jakarta citizens when asked, "what is

civil behavior?". Some citizens perceive "greeting

friends in public” as respect to others, whereas some

other citizens perceive it as politeness and manners.

Therefore we question what is civility from the

perspective of Jakarta citizens?

To find out how Jakarta citizen perceive and

give meaning to civil behavior and to understand

more accurate whether civil behaviors are perceived

as citizen’s responsibility, politeness and manners,

respect, or empathy, we conduct a descriptive study

to Jakarta citizens. The first behaviour refers to

substantive civility; while the rest refer to formal

civility.

Civil related experience vary among individuals

across the globe which result in various different

interpretation about civil behavior. The process

when people observe, experience and interpret their

esperience is labelled as perception, or social

perception. Any stimuli from the real world are

received and interpreted as perceptual experience.

The world that we know is the result of perception

which are “not real” as they are all perceived world.

Citizens of Jakarta are inevitable of being

influenced by various variables that are present

since Jakarta became the capital city of Indonesia

and transformed into an urban city. According to

Mourad (2001, in Wilkins et al., 2010), formal

education is the main component of civil behavior.

City relates to education and social maturity, as

formal education aims to develop the community, to

prepare the students to be able to serve and improve

the social condition. Therefore we hypothesised that

the proportion of the civil behavior that are

considered most important will be different between

the high and the low education level group.

Yusya, N. and Ariyanto, A.

Understanding Civil Behavior from Jakarta Urban Citizens: Study on High and Low Education Level Group.

DOI: 10.5220/0009440401610166

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Psychology (ICPsy 2019), pages 161-166

ISBN: 978-989-758-448-0

161

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Civility, defined as polite behaviors that maintain

social harmony or demonstrate respect for the

humanity of an individual, is important in

maintaining a society (Wilkins et al., 2010).

Definition of civility covers a fairly wide area; such

as a behavior based on the presence of respect

(Wilkins et al., 2010), responsibility and rights

(Boyd, 2006), empathy (Davis, 1983), or politeness

(Ferris, 2002). Boyd (2006) categorized civility into

formal civility and substantive civility. Formal

civility refers to manners, politeness, courtesies or

other direct face to face interactions. While

substantive civility is a sense of membership in a

community that comes with various rights and

obligations.

Civil behavior is important to be present amongst

urban community because civil behavior develops a

convenient and pleasant city atmosphere to live in

(Labigne, 2012) and stimulate a city to grow

optimally, through making the citizens participate

actively to embody the direction of progress and

activities of the city. However, there are indications

that civil behavior are declining in major cities,

which is caused by several factors, such as

individualism, the influence of media, technology

development, weakening of family role, mobility,

and the increasing level of violence. (Labigne,

2012; Mumford, 1938; Wilkins et al., 2010).

Perception is the process of organizing and

interpreting sensory information to reach a meaning

(King, 2011). Each individual has different ways to

interpret and process various sensory information

experienced everyday, also in the process of

interpreting and processing events considered as a

civil or incivil behavior. Personal experience and

environmental stimuli can influence the type of civil

or incivil behavior perceived by urban citizens.

There is yet no study that specifically examine the

perception towards civil behavior of Jakarta urban

citizens.

Perception of civil behavior is defined as a

process where people receive, categorise and give

meaning to experiences, interactions, stimulus

associated with civility. The focus of this study are

four elements of civility: politeness and manners,

civic responsibility, empathy, and respect.

Politeness and manners; empathy; and respect are

classified into formal civility. While civic

responsibility is classified into substantive civility.

There are various factors that can affect the

perception torwards civil behavior of Jakarta urban

citizens. One of the factors that determine how the

interpretation and organization of information is the

level of education. Functionalist argue that formal

education can give rise to civil behavior, social

integration, and obedience in a community

(Parsons, 1959; in Peck, 2002). Educational

background levels can affect how an individual

understands everything. The information possessed

by an individual will influence and to a certain extent

determine his actions and thoughts. According to

Meyer (1977), education can reorganize a

population, create leaders, and redefine the rights

and obligations of a society.

O'Carroll et al. (2006) conducted a research to

see the relationship between voter’s participation

during election and education. The conclusion of

their study shows level of education increases the

number of informed voters. The higher level of

education increases the likelihood of voters to

participate during elections by 21% to 30%

(O'Carroll et al., 2006). This suggests that education

affects participation in democracy. In addition,

Keyes (2005) showed that the level of civic

responsibility, social involvement, and social

concern is influenced by the level of education

(Keyes, 2002).

Both of the above studies conducted in the

United States, trying to find the correlation between

education and civil behavior in point of view of

substantive civility. Journal literatures about formal

civility is limited as substantive civility remains the

major focus of most studies. Discussions about civil

behavior in Indonesia from a formal civility point of

view is limited. This prompted the researchers to

study the perception towards civil behavior of

Jakarta citizens with high and low education levels.

3 RESEARCH METHOD

Participants of this study were adult citizens of

Jakarta aged 18-60 years old, with high (diploma,

bachelor, and master degree) and low education

level (primary school and junior high school) who

has been living in Jakarta for at least four years.

Both groups must have completed elementary

education to avoid literacy constrains. There were

138 participants (77 participants from high

education and 61 participants from low education

level group).

Individual varieties in perceiving civil

behavior is confirmed from the preliminary study

conducted by the researchers to 80 undergaduate

students of the Faculty of Psychology, University

of Indonesia. Students were requested to list

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several words related to civil behavior using free

association. Results of the preliminary study

showed at least 530 words and sentences that

describe “what it is civil behavior”. All words

were categorized and ranked based on the

frequency of occurence by four independent raters.

The questionnaire used in the study is the

continuation of the preliminary study, where

participants listed five most important behaviours

that can best describe the elements of civility.

Then they rank the behaviour from the most

important (1) to least important (5) for citizens’s

responsibility. The same is done for element

number two (politeness and manners), element

number three (respect), and element number four

(empathy).

This research is a descriptive research because

it provides a depiction of perception towards

civility of Jakarta urban citizens at high and low

education level groups. The categorization

between high and low education level is based on

the length of time that has passed by an individual

in formal education.The low education group are

individuals who have formal education for 6-9

years (equivalent to elementary or junior high

school level). The high education level are

individuals who have formal education for more

than 13 years (equivalent to the level of all

diploma, bachelor, master, or doctoral degree).

The data were mainly about citizen in Jakarta.

Data collection took approximately four weeks,

from May 8

, 2016 until June 4

, 2016. To

obtain low education level group participants, the

researchers came to the traditional market at

Kebayoran Lama and some areas in South Jakarta.

To find high education level group respondents, the

researchers distributed questionnaires to students

at the University of Indonesia that live in Jakarta.

All participants received rewards after completion

of questionnaire.

Processing data using descriptive statistics to

prove whether there is a relationship between two

variables. Independent t-test was used to evaluate

the relationship between the two variables in the

population based on the frequency of the data from

the sample. Then the sample distribution

frequency was used to test the hypothesis.

4 RESULT

Statistical analysis with chi-square technique aim to

determine the differences of perception among the

high and low education level group in every element

of civil behavior. We compared the highest score of

each behavior in every element of civil behavior

among the high and low education level group.

The data showed significant difference for

element of civic responsibility among the high (x

(n = 77) = 56.42, p <.05) and low education level

group (x

(n = 61) = 27.31, p <.05). This indicates

that there is a difference between researchers

assumption with the reality in the field about

behavior of civic responsibility among high and low

education group. The distribution proportion of civil

behavior for civic responsibility is not spread evenly

among the high and low education level group. The

high and low education level group are likely to

assume there is one or more behavior that best

describe civic responsibility.

On the element of politeness and manners, high

education level group is significant (x

(n = 77) =

50.72, p <.05), which means that the distribution

proportion of civil behavior that is considered to

best describe politeness and manners is not spread

evenly among the high education level group. While

the low education level group was not significant

(n = 61) = 27.31, p <.05). It shows the

distribution proportion of civil behavior that best

describes politeness and manners was spread evenly

for the low education level group.

For the element of respect, high education level

group is significantly higher (x

(n = 77) = 27.74, p

<.05), which means that the distribution proportion

of civil behavior of respect was not spread evenly.

While among the low education level group (x

= 61) = 15.65, p <.05), in element of respect is not

significant. So the distribution proportion of

behavior that are considered best to describes civil

behavior for element of respect from low education

level groups are spread evenly. The interpretation is

the high education level group are likely to assume

one or more behaviors that best describe respect.

While the low education level group are likely to

assume that there is no specific behavior that best

describes respect.

The last element which is the element of

empathy, high education level group was significant

(n = 77) = 51.55, p <.05), meaning the

distribution proportion of civil behavior for element

of empathy in high education level group was not

spread evenly. While the low education level group

was not significant (x

(n = 61) = 18:42, p <.05),

which means that the distribution proportion of civil

Understanding Civil Behavior from Jakarta Urban Citizens: Study on High and Low Education Level Group

163

behavior for element of respect in low education

level group was spread evenly. Interpretations that

can be drawn is high education level group are likely

to assume there are several behaviors that best

describes empathy. As for the group of low

education level, the interpretation that can be drawn

is low education level group are likely to assume

that there is no specific behavior that best describes

empathy. Therefore, the group of low education level

tend to exercise all five five civil behaviors related

to the elemnt of empathy in urban life.

Table 1: Table of Significance of citizen’s responsibility element from civil behavior based on independent t-test calculation

Behavi

Sig. (2-tailed)

Menyebrang di jembatan penyebrangan

1.559

136

.121

Mematuhi segala aturan lalu lintas

1.514

136

.132

Membuang sampah pada tempatnya

-1.272

136

.206

Menjaga fasilitas umum

-2.247

136

.026

Mengikuti tata tertib kapanpun dan dimanapun berada

.587

134.041

.558

Tingkah laku kewajiban yg paling sering muncul

1.373

135.157

.172

Tingkah laku kewajiban yg paling jarang muncul

-1.093

135.640

.276

Table 2: Table of Significance of politeness and manners element from civil behavior based on independent t-test calculation

Behavior

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mengucapkan salam saat bertemu dan berpisah dengan orang lain

3.391

136

.001

Mengucapkan terima kasih saat seseorang membantu kita

-2.283

105.381

.024

Senyum ketika berpapasan dengan orang lain

2.255

133.857

.026

Menyapa orang yang dikenal saat bertemu

.078

136

.938

Berbicara sopan dengan orang lain

-3.185

136

.002

sopan santun yg paling sering muncul

3.987

135.753

.000

sopan santun yang paling jarang muncul/ditemui

-.846

136

.399

Table 3: Table of Significance of respect element from civil behavior based on independent t- test calculation

Behavior

Sig. (2-tailed)

Menghargai privasi orang lain

-1.927

103.131

.057

Menghargai perilaku/kepercayaan agama lain

-2.580

136

.011

Orang yang lebih muda menghormati yang lebih tua

1.896

136

.060

Mendengarkan dan memperhatikan orang lain yang sedang berbicara dengan kita

-2.711

136

.008

Menghormati tetangga dengan tidak berisik

5.120

107.019

.000

Tingkah laku respect yg paling sering muncul

-.055

136

.956

Tingkah laku respect yg paling jarang muncul

1.313

136

.191

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Table 4: Table of Significance of empathy element from civil behavior based on independent t-test calculation

Behavior

Sig. (2-tailed)

Menolong mobil lain apabila mogok

-1.016

136

.311

Membantu orang yang sedang kesusahan

-4.226

106.529

.000

Secara sukarela membantu orang lain tanpa diminta

-.179

136

.858

Membantu orang lanjut usia menyebrang jalan

.051

136

.959

Memberikan uang kepada pengemis

4.703

87.504

.000

Tingkah laku empathy yg paling sering muncul

4.278

117.422

.000

Tingkah laku empathy yg paling jarang muncul

.072

136

.943

5 DISCUSSIONS

There are some differences between the high

education level and low education level group

regarding their understandings of which behavior best

describes a certain element. Differences between the

high education and low education group is found in

the behavior of respecting the beliefs of others. High

education level group had a greater likelihood of

exposure to information related to religious harmony

because it has become a daily discussion at the

university (all participants of high education level

group experienced living in the university

environment). However, the group of low education

level that only finished elementary or junior high

school, are not necessarily familiar interacting with

people from different religious backgrounds.

For the element of respect, the behavior “respect

of others privacy” best describes the element of

respect for both the high and low education level

group. In this study it was also found that according

to the high education level group, the behavior

“respect the elders” is perceived as less describing the

element of respect. The reason behind could be

because the high education level group tend to

acknowledge intellectual integrity more compared to

age integrity when interacting with others. While the

reason for the low education level group to consider the

behavior “respect the elders” to adequately describe

the element of respect is because there is a possibility

they have an understanding that the integrity of a

person is measured based on age not based on

intellectual quality of an individual.

Furthermore, this study also found the act of

altruistic helping is a luxury, it reinforces the

statement of Milgram (2010) and Moser and Corroyer

(2001), they argue that along with the increasement of

population density in urban areas, the tendency of

people to help each other diminishes and their social

responsibilities also decline. This is reflected through

the behavior “not littering” as most rarely encountered

by the group of high education level compared to the

four other behaviors in the element of civic

obligation. As for the group of low education level,

the behavior “maintain public facilities” is the most

rarely encountered. This could be because they do not

have awareness of the importance to maintain public

facilities.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Based on the research and data analysis from this

study, it can be seen that there is no particular pattern

in the perceptions towards civil behavior, both group

levels, higher education and lower education. These

findings are the answer to the first the research

problem. While between the high level of education

groups and low level education groups there is no

difference of perception about civil behavior. The

results of statistical calculations on groups of lower

education levels indicate that there is no behavior that

are considered best describes the elements of

courtesy, respect, and empathy. However, low

education level group considers that there is a

behavior that best describes the elements obligations

as citizens of the city. As for the group of higher

education, there are behaviors that are considered to

best describes each element.

Understanding Civil Behavior from Jakarta Urban Citizens: Study on High and Low Education Level Group

165

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