Relative Effects of Significant Others on Self-Evaluation

Abstract

Despite a long theoretical tradition emphasizing that we come to define and evaluate ourselves on the basis of how we think others view us (i.e., reflected appraisals), little research has attempted to ascertain which others are most important in this process. Lack of research addressing this issue appears to be due to the methodological problem of obtaining estimates of perceived (or actual) appraisals on self-concept measures which are comparable. This paper examines the relative effects of perceived appraisals of teachers, friends and parents on self-evaluation (by sex) for a sample of 1367 high school seniors. The problem of obtaining comparable estimates of these effects is overcome by using identical response formats for the appraisal measures (which requires estimation of measurement error covariances) and correcting these. estimates for differences in scale reliability. The results suggest that sex interacts with perceived appraisals in affecting self-evaluation; the perceived appraisals of friends have the largest impact on self-evaluation among females, while the perceived appraisals of parents have the largest effect on ths outcome measure among males. These results are used to qualify recent theoretical assertions concerning sex differences pertaining to the reflected appraisal process.