Parental marriage dynamics and the development of self concept in children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between parental marriage dynamics and the development of self concept in children. In exploring this relationship the parental marriage was focused upon by separately assessing both latent and manifest dynamics. A total of 70 families were utilized in the sample of this research. Data were collected by assessing, within each family, both parents and one child between the ages of 8-12. Assessment of these family members entailed two measures of the parent's marriage, evaluating each spouse's perception of the latent and manifest marriage dynamics, and one measure of the child, evaluating the child's self concept. Results of this study showed no general relationship between latent or manifest parental marriage dynamics and child self concept. However, when data were analyzed separately by child gender and specific child self attributes there were several relationships which approached significance and two which demonstrated statistical significance. The two relationships which tested to be significant were between parental latent marriage dynamics and child self report of anxiety and happiness. Additionally, there were several trends in the data which suggest a gender specific differential relationship between parental marriage dynamics and child self attributes.