Field Dependence and Self-Esteem in Filipino Girls

Abstract

It has been suggested (5) that persons with low self-esteem do not possess a welldeveloped conceptual buffer for evaluating stimuli in the environment and that they therefore tend to conform passively to the influence of the prevailing field or context. In other terminology, the low self-esteem individual is field-dependent (4). There has been little empirical investigation of this claim. However, Pawelkiewicz and McIntire (3) did report higher self-esteem for field-independent pre-adolescent boys and girls. This paper examined the relationship between self-esteem and field dependence in a South-East Asian context. The subjects were 243 seventh grade pupils of a secondary school in Cebu City, a major city in the Visayas region of the Republic of the Philippine Islands. The girls were of 11-13 yr. of age and from middle to upper class backgrounds. Subjects were given the Hidden Figures Test (2) as a measure of field dependence and the Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory (1) as a measure of self-esteem. The items of the latter instrument were judged by two Filipino educationists to be suitable, with two minor changes i.n wording, for use with Filipino adolescents for whom English was the language of schooling. The scores on the Hidden Figures Test were used to divide the subjects into three groups. The top third of the scores (corresponding to Hidden Figures Test scores of 16 or above correct out of 22) were defined as field independent while the boctom third (scores of 10 or less correct) were designated field dependent. Means and standard deviations of self-esteem scores were 30.43 and 5.34 for 81 field-dependent subjeas and 31.63 and 5.64 for 81 field-independent subjeas (t = 1.40, df = 1G0, p > .O5). Although the trend was as predicted, we cannot reject the null hypothesis of no relationship between self-esteem and field independence. More empirical support is needed before the relationship between self-esteem and field independence can be considered verified.