An investigation of self description and the locus of self-knowledge: a comparison study based on the findings of Rosenberg (1979)

An investigation of self –description and the locus of self-knowledge: a comparison study based on the findings of Rosenberg (1979)

Abstract

This comparison study investigated the self-description and locus of self-knowledge of two children, aged 8 and 16, based on previous research by Rosenberg (1979). Rosenberg’s study resulted in findings supporting the idea that younger children describe themselves more in physical attributions and this changes with age to more description of character and inner attributions of the self. A list of ‘I’ statements written by participants and semi-structured interviews were used to obtain data from participants. Collected data was coded and analysed and compared with findings of Rosenberg. The locus of self-knowledge data gained from the interviews were also analysed and compared with supporting evidence that as children mature their locus of self-knowledge shifts from other people to the self. Results of this study were similar to Rosenberg’s and therefore support his study.

Introduction

Psychologists such as Piaget involved in research of children’s development have been studying the processes and influence of forming their identity. Identity is believed to be an ongoing process starting at young age and establishing itself throughout the childhood and adulthood.

Research by many has been conducted in fields of establishing how children’s identity comes to an existence, when they start forming one and how it changes throughout the childhood. Results of Maccoby’s research suggest that development of the self is not accomplished quickly and the understanding of the self increases with the child’s age and experiences and becomes more complex. (Miell and Ding, 2005)

In the early 1900s studies by researchers such as James emerged. According to James (1892) the first indication of self-understanding and identity formation can be seen when the child starts to recognize him/herself as existent. James further divided the self focuses on emergence of identity factor to the existential self (I) and the categorical self (me).

The existential self comes to recognition of the child as Cooley (1902) claims when the primarily sense of the self can be derived from the child’s understanding that their actions affect their surroundings and he further claims that this is driven by the desire to control and exercise power. Such control can be demonstrated in physical movements and the child’s control over them. Lewis and Brooks-Gunn suggest that such recognitions give children the knowledge that they differ from other people.

The categorical self as described by James is the recognition of the self as an object with characteristics that define a person, such as name, gender, physical attributions, and relationships. Colley and Mead emphasise the importance of social interaction in defining the categorical self. They claim that the recognition of the categorical self is not only by the child’s own recognition of their identity but also by its recognition by others. (Miell and Ding, 2005)

Rosenberg (1979) devoted his research to studying the development of children’s identity and the locus of self knowledge which shows the ability to self-reflect. His study revealed that as children grow up and mature their self description shifts from physical aspects of the self which can also be described by another person to more inner characteristics of the self. His study also revealed that the locus of self knowledge shifts with age from other adults, especially parents, to the self.

This study is undertaken to explore whether Rosenberg’s study could be supported with some more research. The hypothesis is to ...

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This study is undertaken to explore whether Rosenberg’s study could be supported with some more research. The hypothesis is to determine the difference in comparison of two children with different age and the nature of their answers as well as the shift of locus of knowledge.

Method

Design

The method used was comparison of self-descriptions during semi-structured interviews based on study by Rosenberg (1979). Comparison was carried out based on data supplied by the Open University. Study used two participants selected by Open University who were asked to fill in a self description ‘I’ statement list and then participants were questioned about their answers and these were recorded for further analysis. Transcripts of the interviews were available from the Open University. The ‘I’ statements were then subtracted from the interview recording and coded into 4 groups identified by Rosenberg: Physical, Characteristic, Relationships and Inner. Interview included questions designed to investigate the ‘locus of self-knowledge’.

Participants

Two participants took part in this study. First participant was Annie, eight-year old girl. The second participant was Adam, sixteen-year old boy. Each participant was interviewed by different researcher.

Materials

The audio material for this study was recorded and supplied by Open University on ED Child Development Media Kit. Transcripts of the interviews were available for download on the Open University website. The tables used for coding were supplied on the DVD as well (see Appendix 1). The interview questions were used based on questions in investigations by Harter (1983) and Rosenberg (1979).

Procedure

This study was conducted following the BPS ethical code and principles. In the Assignment Book for TMA 04 information about the interview was disclosed. The interviewers had no prior knowledge about the participants. Participants willingly agreed to take part in the study. Parental consents were obtained from the parents of the children in the study. The interviews were carried out in the children’s schools during the school day. Present in the interviewing room were also the sound recordist and the producer.

At the start of the interview children were asked to write ‘I’ statements about themselves and write them down on a sheet of A4 paper under the question ‘Who am I?’. When finished, the interviewer would then take the sheet and read out every statement and ask additional questions in relation to it. Annie has written 5 statements and was able to answer all additional questions without any problems. Adam has written 9 statements and was able to answer all additional questions without any problems. The interview with Annie took about 20 minutes; the interview with Adam took about 30 minutes.

Results

The collected data presented in form of ‘I’ statements were coded and categorized into 4 groups according to Rosenberg’s categories of self-description. These categories were Physical, Character, Relationships and Inner (see Appendix 2). A percentage for each category was calculated for each participant.

Annie - analysis results:

Adam - analysis results:

The results show a shift in self description and increase in percentage in character and Inner attributes for Adam. Annie’s results show only self-description of Physical and Character groups with Physical score of 60% and Character score of 40%, where Adam’s scores show quite high scores for both Physical and Inner at 33%. Also Relationships has a score of 11% for Adam, where Annie’s score is 0%. She also scored as 0% for Inner category. Overall there is a decrease in Physical category by 27% and Character category by 7% for Adam in comparison to Annie and increase in Relationships by 11% and in Inner by 33% for Adam (see Appendix 2).

Self – description

Annie describes herself more in aspects in relation to other people and physical characteristics. Adam relates more to his future goals and achievements as well as seeing himself as ‘sporty person’. Adam puts emphasis on his future.

Locus of self-knowledge

Annie’s answers show her reliability on parents and teachers opinion of herself as a guide. Adam seems to accept the views of him by others but voices his opinions about himself he believes to be right.

Self-evaluation

Annie values herself as kind and people would like her if they got to know her. Adam believes to be quite generous to people and assumes that’s how other perceive him. He also believes to be a smart person.

Self and others

Annie compares herself on bases of the same abilities and likes/dislikes with other friends. Adam talks about friends and being part of a group.

Ideal self

Annie would improve her legs and ears (physical attributes), she considers herself not very good at remembering and telling time but very good at maths. Adam doesn’t want to change as he perceives that change may not be good for him based on previous experiences. He would like to achieve his career goals.

Discussion

The study undertaken and the results obtained in this study supports the research hypothesis that, based on Rosenberg’s research (1979), older children pay more attributes to relationships and inner qualities of self-description rather than young children and their locus of self-knowledge shifts from other adults to themselves. Although some physical description was strongly described in both cases of 8 and 16 years old participants, the ‘I statements’ clearly showed the shift in acknowledging self as more categorical with age. Older participant was more comfortable to talk about his own goals and achievements. As has also been described by Harter (1983), the 16 year old expressed his own views and attitudes about himself whereas the younger participant described her qualities through comparison with other people or through the opinions of other people. Although this may be greatly influenced by the sense of the person’s importance in their environment and may not be stable over time and situations.

Children’s development in the light of psychological research is apparent in Donaldson’s argument to Piaget where Donaldson’s stated that children’s reasoning is embedded in social situations they experience. Here the idea of understanding the world around us start to shift from exploring it’s physical attributes to understanding the bigger picture where relationships and social interaction plays important role. Mead (1934) claimed that the sense of self is established through social interaction. James (1982) argued that not only social interaction is important to the development of the self but rather more important seems the ability to self-evaluate and self-reflect on achievements that help to determine the sense of self.

As Maccoby (1980) suggests, sense of the self develops gradually. As the results of this study shows it seems that the emergence of the categorical self is less evident in younger children than older children. Piaget places children’s ability of formal operations which he connects to forming identity at about the age of 12 years. This is described as a stage where adolescents start to acknowledge themselves as individuals and create their self awareness and reflexivity. There may be a difference in individuals and their development of the sense of self. Some children may developmentally obtain such ability earlier and some later as there may be many factors influencing it, such as social interaction, play in childhood, nurture and genetic predisposition.

Some methodological issues arose during this study, such as inconsistencies with categorizing by different researchers may provide different evidence. Some statements could be placed in more than one category group. There is also the danger of over generalising the descriptions. Very little information was available about the participants, such as their ethnic background and nationality which may influence the results. We must consider the ability to express oneself vocally, especially considering the younger participant where the decreased ability of expression may have played an important role in describing herself.

Further research shall try to avoid methodological issues highlighted. It would be interesting to compare studies of children from different ethnic backgrounds and nationalities as well as a longitudinal study with the same participants to see if their self-description and locus of self knowledge changes over time.

Conclusion

The conclusion of this study is that children mature at different ages and together with that their ability of self description increases. Self description changes from physical attributes in younger children to more character and inner attributes in older children. The locus of self-knowledge changes over time and shifts from other adults to the self. Though this study has shown some important issues in researching the concepts of locus of self-knowledge and self-description, it shows as a good indicator identity development in children.

Word count: 2011

References:

Cooley, C. (1902) as cited in Miell and Ding (2005), p. 131 - 136

Donaldson, M. (1978)as cited in Oates, J., Sheehy, K. And Wood, C (2005), p. 69

Harter, S. (1983) as cited in Miell and Ding (2005) p. 129

James, W (1892) as cited in Miell and Ding (2005), p. 131- 136

Lewis, M. and Brooks-Gunn, J (1979) as cited in Miell and Ding (2005), p. 132-136

Maccoby, E. (1980) as cited in Miell and Ding (2005), p. 131

Mead, G.H. (1934) as cited in Miell an Ding (2005), p. 134

Miell, D. and Ding, S. (2005) ’The Early Development of Identity’ in Ding, S., and Littleton K., (ed.) Children’s Personal and Social Development, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing/The Open University

Oates, J., Sheehy, K. And Wood, C (2005) ‘Theories of Development’ in Oates, J., Wood, C. and Grayson A. (ed) Psychological Development and Early Childhood, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing/The open University

Open University (2010) Assigment Booklet, ED209 Child Development: United Kingdom, p. 20-30

Piaget, J. (1976), as cited in Oates, J., Sheehy, K. And Wood, C (2005), p. 66

Rosenberg, M. (1979), as cited in Assignment Booklet, TMA 04 Practical (2010), p. 20-25

The Open University (2006) ED209, Child development, “DVD 00171, Media kit: Audio band 3- self-concept interviews", Milton Keynes, The Open University