Survey on Self Esteem of Girl Students In District Rohtak

Self-esteem is an essential condition for effective functioning both in the child and in the adult. A negative self-esteem promotes defensiveness in the relations to him and to others. Rani (1980) and Rao et al. and Smart (1970) found that self-esteem and parental rejection did not interact significantly to influence creativity. It has been also shown that the self-esteem of the high performers was higher than that of low performers. Adolescent girls with high self-esteem showed more risk-taking tendencies, whereas, both the extremes of socio-economic status (upper and lower) promoted unethical risk-taking behaviour (Rani, 1970; Smart and Barkdale, 1973; Martin and Beezly, 1977; Naggian, 1980, Kumari, 1982; Oetes, 1985; Mathur, 1986 and Dutt, 1991).

A number of studies have been conducted to show the effect of directed hostility or warmth upon children (Symonds, 1949; Erikson, 1950; Mc Cland et ah, 1953; Anthony, 1970; Rohner, 1980; Sekhar, 1980 and Singh, 1984). The researchers have shown that the behaviour disorders of children find their roots in parental rejection. It has also been found that if one of both parents strongly rejects a child, he tends to become overaggressive or hostile and may resort to truancy, lying and stealing. Cervantes (1965) and Setharama (1981) have found that communication between parents and children and mutual acceptance and understandings among family members were all significantly poorer in families of drop outs that of graduates. Sears (1961) found that accepted children appear friendly, creative and lacking in hostility and rejection may lead to shyness and social withdrawal, difficulties in relating to peers and little confidence in built role taking. Cooper (1950) and Kengan et al. (1962) consider inadequate affection in the home and diffidence of parents concerning the social, emotional and moral development of children as being the conditions most likely to lead to delinquency. Desauza (1970) and Nijhawan (1975) have found that the attitude and behaviour which parents hold happen to be an important correlate, of child’s success in the world, be it education, job or fame in society. The more acceptances a parent has for his child, the more he is apt to attribute his own positive characteristic to his child but not his negative ones. The rejecting parents, on the other hand, may be prone to project his own negative qualities to his child to a greater extent than his positive attitudes. A negative self-esteem affects achievements motivation (n-ach) and academic progress. (Anshu, 1985; Rosen, 1961; Engel et al., 1963; Dentsch, 1964; Tiwari, 1967; Sinha, 1968; Panday, 1970; Desai, 1970; Bhduri, 1970; Zadoo, 1980 and Srivastava, 1981). It was, however, found that sex does not influence academic performance. Males scored more than females on measures of n-ach. Prakash (1981) has found that there is no relationship between the need achievement and the acceptance and concentration aspects of parent-child relationship. There was a significant low negative correlation between the n-ach of adolescents and the avoidance aspects of parent-child relationship. Sekhar (1980) has shown that factors of cordial parental relationship, democratic attitudes of the parents, acceptance of the child by the parents, encouragement given by the parents and relationship with younger siblings in the family showed a direct positive relationship with creativity. However, Prakash (1981) has found that performance of high achievement motivation group was higher than that of average and low achievement motivation group. The average achievement motivation subjects had higher achievement than the low achievement subjects.

Investigatons have found that rejected children had more proneness to delinquency , hostility , anxiety and emotional instability has compared to accepted children and had strong feeling s on the their parental rejection and negligence (Modimus,1965; Piers et al., 1968; Dandapani, 1970; Anand and Deve, 1979; Deb, 1980; Sern, 1980; Slavin, 1980; Misra, 1981; Goswami, 1982; and Maqbool, 1988). Some investigators have shown that childrens’ academic achievement is dependent on their perception of acceptance in maternal child rearing behaviour. Nagalakshmi (1982) has found that the average student was from middle and lower middle class. Boys and girls did not differ significantly in academic motivation. The students from small families had higher academic motivation than those from large families. Academic motivation correlated significantly with mother’s behavior on the dimension of acceptance rejection but not with father’s behaviour on the same dimension. On the dimensions of fostering independence fostering achievement non-achievement parent’s behaviour did not show any relationship with student’s academic motivation. Gupta (1982) has shown that father’s profession did not bear any influence on reading performance. Rani (1980) found that the academic achievement of the students was positively related to reflected self-esteem of two other significant factors (teachers and peers) in the educational set- up for the SC students. She also observed that SC students tend to exhibit significantly better educational, social, health adjustments. A higher desirability of parental preference in the social field results in better educational adjustment. Similarly Badami (1975) has found that the degree of peer group acceptance is positively related to school achievement. As mentioned earlier parental care is characterized by love, affection, warmth, acceptance etc. parental attitude and child’s success in different spheres of life be it education, vocation of simple adjustment to family, peer group and classroom situation.

On the other hand self esteem is an essential condition for effective functioning both in the child as well as in the adult. The review of literature has revealed that only few studies have been conducted on parentally accepted and rejected boys and girls (Harlow and Harlow, 1962; Rohnar, 1975, 1978; Nagar, 1973; Rohner and Rhner, 1980; Kitsharov, 1988; Crook et al., 1988; Sengar et al., 1990; Sinha et al., 1990). However, no study on parental acceptance-rejection in relation to socio-economic status (SES), Self-esteem and achievement Motivation has been reported so for. It is against this background that the investigator has chosen the problem for investigation. It will be of great importance to establish whether negative self-esteem interferes, with the achievement motivation level and if it interferes, what remedial measures could be considered for such children. Further the proposed study also help in understanding as to what extent subjects belonging to various socio-economic status levels vary in their n- achievement and self-esteem. In the proposed study the investigator addresses herself to certain research questions like what is the nature of self-esteem in respect of parentally accepted and rejected girls? What is the strength of need achievement (n-ach) on the continuum of hope of success? Fear of failure in case of accepted and rejected girls?

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