Perceived Parent-Child Relationships and Personal-Social Adjustment of Late-Adolescent Males and Females

The major purpose of this investigation is to provide further insight into the area of parent-adolescent relationships and individual personal-social adjustment through an examination of the perceptions of late-adolescents regarding their familial atmospheres. The first major objective of the study is to investigate, separately for each sex, the relationship between the late adolescent’s personal-social adjustment and his/her perceptions of the familial atmosphere during his childhood and adolescence. In addition to this initial concern, a secondary objective will focus on the concept of change and investigate the change and/or stability of the individual’s perceptions of his familial atmosphere as well as the change and/or stability of his personal-social adjustment between the freshman and the senior year in college. A third major objective will be to investigate the relationship between change in the individual’s perceptions of his familial atmosphere and change in his personal-social adjustment between the freshman and the senior year in college. Two ancillary objectives have also been identified within the framework of the present study. The first ancillary objective is to compare perceptions of familial atmospheres of a selected group of freshmen in 1969 with the perceptions of a similarly selected group of college freshmen in 1972. This comparison will help determine if there are general differences or similarities observable in two different groups of freshmen, which may then provide some indication of either societal change or stability in this area. The final ancillary objective will be to investigate the differences and/or similarities between the sexes on the scales of the inventory developed to measure perceptions of family interaction (i.e., Family Relations Inventory) and on the scales of the inventory developed to measure personal-social adjustment (i.e., California Psychological Inventory). Advisor: Jacqueline Vos