Self-Image Disparity and Adjustment in Young Adult Females

Abstract

de Man ( 1 ) speculated that the larger discrepancies between real and ideal self found among young adult women who come from controlling or autonomy-granting family badgrounds were respectively the result of internal or external restrictions. In the present investigation an attempt was made to obtain at least some indirect support for this speculation. It was hypothesized that, i f self-image disparity indeed is the result of such restrictions, higher levels of conflict should be reported by women with large discrepancies than those with small discrepancies. In other words, as suggested by Rogers and Dymond ( 2 ) . high self-image disparity should be associated with greater ad justrnent problems. To test this hypothesis, the women who took part in the previous investigation were administered the adult form of the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank ( 3 ) . This rest, an attempt to standardize the sentence completion method, is a semi-structured projective technique in which the subjects are asked to finish 40 sentences for which the first words are supplied. The completions are scored by comparing them against typical answer patterns in an empirically derived scoring manual and by assigning to each response a scale value which may vary from 0 to 6 according to the degree of indicated adjustment or maladjustment. The sum of the individual ratings provides a total adjustmenc/maladjustment score. Theoretically, the scores can range from 0 to 240 but Rotter indicated that practically they range from 70 to 200; scores of 110 to 150 are most common. Since the scoring plan involved judgments and matching sentences against criteria, the reliability of scoring was an important factor. Two experimentally naive scorers were requested to evaluate the answers of the subjects. The interscorer reliability was .957, and the difference between mean scores for the two raters (MI = 141.40, Mn = 138.92) was 2.48. Although these data suggested high agreement among the judges, it could not be assumed that the scorers always had arrived at exactly the same score per item for a particular subject. They were requested to compare their scores, to discuss variations in interpretation, and to arrive at a list of final scores acceptable to both. The resulting scores (range: 107 to 173) were subsequently intercorrelated with the subjects' disparity scores (range: 30 to 121). The coefficient of .48 ( p < .02) suggested that, at least for females at the young adult age, there is a moderate relationship between self-image disparity and degree of adjustment, as suggested (1, 2 ) .