The Family as a Determinant of Conflict in Self-Perceptions
The nuclear family has been considered the most irnportanc factor in [he development of the self. It has been viewed as providing the child with his first social environment and model for behavior, as well as the first agents of socialization, and a "looking glass" in which he can see himself through the eyes of others. The psychoanalytic concept of identification has been used to explain the influence of the nuclear family on the development of the self chrough the process of internalization of attributes of significant others who serve as models for behavior. Role theorists (9, 10) have discussed the development of the self in terms of the internalization of roles or patterns of attitudes and actions. According to Thompson (13) , "In the attempt to avoid the feeling of discomfort produced by d~sapproval, the child tends to develop and emphasize those aspects of himself which are pleasing or acceptable to significant adults" (p . 213). There is some experimental evidence that role models presented by the parents are related to the self-perceptions of the individual. Helper ( 5 ) found that, if the mother's perception of the facher matched her perception of the boy's ideal self, the boy would perceive his ideal self to be close to his perceptions of his father. He also found that a divergence between the father's and mother's picture of the ideal self for the child was associated with a high degree of self-concept instabiliry on the part of the child. .Instability was measured in terms of differences in the child's self ratings between cest and retest. Jourard and Remy ( 6 ) discovered that attitudes toward the self are related to those attitudes the individual perceives his parents have toward him. Sarbin and Van Spanckeren (reported in 10) found that persons who reported thac they were reared by multiple parencal figures were more social and more homogenous than those who reported that they were reared by only one or two parental figures. The present study was conducted in order to determine the relationship