The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between elementary
school students\' personality and parents\' rearing attitude by the sibling composition
of them. It\'s specifically meant to determine the relationship of sibling composition
to parents\' rearing attitude, of sibling composition to child personality and of
parents\' rearing attitude to child personality.
The study was carried out through review of literature and survey. The sample
size of this study were 500 students randomly selected from among six graders in
two different elementary schools in the city of Incheon. After a survey was
conducted, the responses from 450 students were chosen for analysis.
The questionaires were developed by the reasearch based on review of literature.
A Parents\' Rearing Attitude scale (40 items) classified parents\' rearing attitude into
four : achievement-nonachievement, openness-closure, acceptance-rejection, and
autonomy-control and a Children\'s Personality scale (120 items) dealt with six
personality subareas : security, activity level, dominance, sociability, considerateness
and responsibility.
The reliability of the scales was calculated by using Cronbach\'s lapha. The
Cronbach\'s alpha coefficients were 0.72 for achievement-nonachievement, 0.73
openness-closure, 0.60 acceptance-rejection, and 0.65 autonomy-control which are
subscales of the Parents\' Rearing Attitude scale. Also, each coefficient the Children\'s
Personality scale was 0.77 in security, 0.75 in activity level, 0.79 in dominance, 0.79 in sociability, 0.78 in considerateness, 0.86 in responsibility.
For data analysis, variance analysis was implemented to find out the relationship
of sibling composition to parental rearing attitude and child personality, and
correlational analysis and stepwise multiple regression procedure were employed to
identify the relationship between parental rearing attitude and child personality.
The findings of this study were as below:
First, in conjunction with the number of siblings, the parents who had one child
had a more achievement-oriented attitude, and the parents who had two or more
children showed a more open, acceptive and autonomous attitude.
By order of birth, the parents took a more achievement-oriented attitude toward
the oldest or middle children than toward the youngest ones, and toward only
children than toward the oldest ones. They showed a more open attitude toward the
youngest children than toward the middle ones, and their attitude toward only
children was most closed.
The gender of siblings had nothing to do with parental rearing attitude.
Second, as for connections between sibling composition and child personality, the
children who had two siblings had a more stable personality than those who were
only children or had three or more siblings.
By order of birth, the oldest and youngest children had a more stable personality
than those who were only children or the middle children. The oldest or only
children were more considerate than the middle or youngest children. The oldest
children were the best in a sense of responsibility, followed by the youngest
children and only children in the order named. The middle children were most
inferior in a sense of responsibility.
The gender of the siblings made no significant difference to the children\'s
personality.
Third, regarding connections between parental rearing attitude and child
personality, the children\'s security was predicted by openness-closure, acceptancerejection
and achievement-nonachievement factors, and these factors made a 17.1%
prediction. In particular, achievement-nonachievement factor was negatively
correlated to their security.
The children whose parents had an achievement-oriented attitude excelled the other children in terms of activity level, and this factor made a 8.3% prediction of
the children\'s activity level.
The child dominance was predicted by acceptance-rejection and achievementnonachivement
factors, and these factors made a 13.8% prediction.
The child sociability was predicted by achievement-nonachievement, acceptancerejection,
and autonomy-control factors, and these factors made a 10.3% prediction.
The child considerateness was predicted by achievement-nonachievement,
acceptance-rejection and autonomy-control factors, and these factors made a 11.8%
prediction.
A sense of responsibility was predicted by acceptance-rejection and autonomycontrol
factors, and these factors made a 11.2% prediction.
The impact of sibling composition and parental rearing attitude on child personality
varied from group to group.