Psychological Differentiation and Socioeconomic and Demographic Backgrounds of a Diverse Group of College Students

Abstract

The effects of a family's socioeconomic status on psychological differentiation were tested separately for performance on the Hidden Figures Test, the Hidden Patterns Test, and the Modified This I Believe Test by 53 male and 87 female white undergraduates who were varied in socioeconomic status and demographic characteristics. Contrary to hypothesis, father's socioeconomic status was not related to any of the psychological measures. Instead the socioeconomic status of the respondent's best friend, the size of the home community (inversely), and being of Northern European ethnic heritage showed more consistent prediction across the three analyses. The importance of the social status of the respondent's best friend perhaps indicates that differentiated individuals tend more to self-select complex environments in which to act than social class tends to produce differentiated individuals.