Children's Human Figure Drawings and Impulsive Style at Two Levels of Socioeconomic Status

Abstract

The relationship between children's reflection-impulsivity styles and their human figure drawings was examined for a sample of Mexican children of middle (n = 97) and low (n = 110) socioeconomic status. Drawings were scored for Developmental, Emotional, and Impulsivity indicators. As in previous research with American preschoolers, the drawings of 23 Mexican preschoolers did not correlate with the styles; however, significant relationships between the styles and Impulsivity scores of older children of low status (n = 87) were also found, suggesting that, when a higher-level of impulsivity is present in a population, a relationship between styles and drawings may be observed. The findings for low-status preschoolers, even their higher Impulsivity scores, support the notion that Kagan's measure of impulsivity is not appropriate for use with younger children.