A role repertory grid measure of subjects' perception of parent-peer differentiation

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Carolyn Jane Biggerstaff (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
George North

Abstract: The importance of distinguishing between parent and peer figures has been stressed by many personality theorists. Frank (1961) said that the two major sources of stimulation of interpersonal behavior are individuals on whom one feels dependent and those whom he perceives to be like himself. Children learn early to differentiate between adult figures who have the authority or power to reward and punish, and other children who are in relatively dependent situations similar to their own. Nearer adulthood, it is no longer such a simple matter of differentiating between those powerful individuals on whom one is dependent, and others similar to ourselves, by their age alone. Parental and peer roles that may be readily perceived as related to age in childhood are continued into adulthood, although often in disguised form. It is not unusual to see a corporation president or a doctor treated with the deference first reserved for parents. Freud, Jung, and other early psychoanalytic clinicians presented personality theories in which the individual's early emotional attachment to parent figures plays a crucial role. That such an attachment exists is a general idea in psychological literature, and can be seen in studies such as those reporting the results of parental deprivation (Bowlby, 1966; Harlow & Harlow, 1969) and studies of imprinting (Hess, 1956; Lorenz, 1957). Freud used the term transference to refer to a reinvestment of parental attachment onto a therapist, and psychoanalysis has been viewed as a process of working through this transference.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 1970
Subjects
Differentiation (Developmental psychology)
Transference (Psychology)
Parental influences
Peer pressure

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