Social Schemata of Children, Peer Acceptance, and Home or Dormitory Residence

Abstract

A modified version of Kuethe's technique was administered to 48 seventh-grade normal boys. 27 of the subjects were dormitory residents, the remaining 21 lived at home. Contrary to expectation a positive correlation was found for peer acceptance and distance between figures. There were no significant differences between the accepted and nonaccepted groups or between home and dormitory residents. Boy-boy figures were placed closer to one another than the figures of other pairs. The findings were discussed as they relate to previous research with disturbed children.

The Felt Figure Test on Measures of Distance and Height in Israeli Children

“…Subjects in the DuHamel & Jarmon, 1971; experiment were told. "This is yourself and another boy," whereas subjects in the Rabinowitz and Shavit (1977) study did not know whom the figures represented. The present study follows the DuHamel and Jarmon (1971) instructions, but in addition, the subjects for this study include both sexes, not only boys.…”

“…The technique is based upon the psychological premise that physical proximity -i.e., the distance between figures -indicates psychological closeness or remoteness. Rabinowitz and Shavit (1977) found that boys place figures closer to one another in the boy-boy configuration than in other configurations: i.e., father-boy and mother-boy. This finding seems to contradict Weinstein's (1965) data, and is congruent with the DuHamel and Jarmon (1971) findings, although since their instructions differed, cannot be considered as conclusive.…”

“…Some researchers have varied the technique and others have studied children (DuHamel & Jarmon, 1971): Rabinowitz & Shavit, 1977;Tolor, Warren, & Weinick, 1971). The technique is based upon the psychological premise that physical proximity -i.e., the distance between figures -indicates psychological closeness or remoteness.…”