A study of self-ratings by children

Abstract

423 seventh and eighth grade children in New York, approximately evenly divided as between boys and girls and as between negroes and whites, acted as subjects; their average IQ was 107 and their average age 13 1/2. They were asked to underline the member of each of 30 pairs of adjectives which more nearly described themselves; five Columbia graduates in psychology studied the list and indicated which member of each pair the child would be more likely to consider undesirable, and also divided the list into three parts according to degree of undesirability. Only 6% of the total number of responses were undesirable; of these, Proud, Daring and Bad Tempered were most often marked, and Stingy, Distrustful and Cowardly least often. The boys marked somewhat more undesirable traits than the girls, and the whites more than the negroes, though the latter difference is not very reliable. The more undesirable traits were marked less often than the less undesirable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)