The child's differential perception of parental attributes.

Abstract

HE child's conceptualization of the parental roles and the specific characteristics he attributes to each parent are relevant to several theoretical issues. In describing the course of the child's identifications during the early school years, it has been suggested that the choice of parental models for identification is determined by the child's perception of parental differences in power, competence, and nurturance (Kagan, 1958; Maccoby, 1959). Moreover, Parsons and Bales (1955) have suggested that the mother's role is primarily concerned with maintaining warm, integrated, interpersonal relations. The paternal role prescription calls for instrumental skills and the ability to adapt to the environment. Thus, information on the child's perception of his parents may clarify problems associated with the identification process and test the validity of Parsons' dichotomy of parental roles. Semantics is a second area which draws its theoretical statements from the individual's perception of the environment. Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum (1957) have reported that young adults use three conceptual dimensions in their categorization of a wide variety of objects, i.e., evaluative (good vs. bad), potency (strong vs. weak), and activity (active vs. passive). The content of the potency and activity dimensions resembles the stereotyped conception of male and female sex roles. For example, the adjectives large, strong, loud, heavy, brave, bass, rough, and rugged have the highest factor loadings on the potency factor. The adjectives agitated, sharp, ferocious, tense, hot, angular, active, and fast have the highest loadings on the activity factor. These adjectives are more commonly applied to males than to females, while their polar opposites are more characteristic of stereotyped female attributes.