---------------------------♦----------------------------- INTRODUCTION

Belonging parents are those who dislike disapprove of, or resent their children. In many cases they view the child as a burden, and they sometimes compare him unfavorably with other children. Rejection is manifested around the world in tow principal ways, namely, in the form of parental hostility and aggression on the one hand, and in the form of parental indifference and neglect on the other (Rohner, 1975; 1980). Hostility refers to feelings of anger, resentment, and enmity toward the child, whereas indifference refers to a lack of concern of interest in the child. Aggression and neglect, on the other hand, are forms of observable behavior mitigated to a large extent by each of these internal states, respectively. That is, hostile parents are likely to be aggressive, either verbally or physically. Aggressive parents may hit, kick, push, pinch, bite, choke, scratch, or burn.

The investigations related to above variable were conducted through following investigators in relation to interactive ness of the home, restrictions, success, social and cultural differences , academic performance and socio-economic status levels (Glueck, 1939; McClelland et al., 1953; Atkinson and Miller, 1956; Winterbottom, 1958; Feld, 1960; McClelland, 1962; Yamauchi, 1964; Hayashietal, 1962; Lewell, 1952; Bendig, 1959; Michall, 1961; Cole et al., 1962 ; Caren, 1963; Smith, 1964; Muthayya and Rajeshwari, 1968; Bhatnager, 1969; Rani 1979; Jerath, 1972; Atkineen, 1958; Heckhausen, 1967; Sarrenrath, 1960; Patel, 1977; Duty and Duty, 1964; Shrable and Saseerath, 1970; Mehta, 1967; Rajamohn, 1978; Grewal and Kaur, 1981; Singh and singh, 1979; Sundaram, 1981; McClleland, 1953; Mehta, 1969; Rosen, 1961; Sahoo and Panda, 1982; Naik, 1978; Pande, 1977; Gokulnath and Mehta, 1972; Gupta, 1978; Saxena, 1981; Kureshi and Husain, 1978; Prakash, 1981; Ahulwalia, 1985; Gupta and Raghavan, 1990; Crandall, 1964; Morgan, 1952; McClleland et al., 1953; Mishra, 1993; Alam, 1992). Glueck (1939) has found that in urban area the relationship between achievement motivation and adjustment was negatively significant. McClelland et al. (1953) studied the effect of perceived parent behaviour on n- achievement scores of male college students. Sons who perceived their fathers as having rejected them had higher n- achievement scores than the sons whose fathers loved and accepted them. Atkinsona and Miller (1956), has found that the family as a small group structure may also contain influence which further or hinder the development of strong achievement motivation. Both orders of sibling, size of the family, the intactness of the home have been shown to be important. Winterbottom (1958) investigated mother’s attitude towards independence training and n-achievement. Here results indicated that high n- achievement subjects decreased restrictions at the age of eight

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sons with higher n- ach scores than mothers who do not use physical rewards. Feld (1960) re-examined winter bottom’s students, six years later. The achievement motivation of the 14 to 16 years of girls correlated negatively with the values that mothers placed on independence in their sons at this age level, Hayashi and Yamuchi (1964) indicated the following factor as the most important point. The low motivations (mothers of low motivation children) are apt to mingle strict and indulgent attitudes. In other words, there is no consistency in their training.

Acceptance -rejection theory predicts that parental warmth and emotional abuse have consistent effects on the personality development of children everywhere, as well as the personality functioning of adults who were rejected as children. To be more specific, acceptance -rejection theory predicts that rejected or emotionally abused children everywhere tend more than accepted children lo be; hostile and aggressive; to be dependent or “defensively independent”, depending on the degree of rejection; to have an impaired sense of self-esteem and self-adequacy; to be emotionally unstable; emotionally unresponsive; and to have a negative world view. We expect each of these personality dispositions to result from rejection for the following reasons. First, all of us tend to view ourselves as we imagine “significant others” view us, and if our parents as the most significant of others rejected us as children we are likely to define ourselves as unworthy of love, and therefore as unworthy and inadequate human beings. In this way, we develop a sense of overall negative self-evaluation. Including feelings of negative self- esteem and negative self-adequacy. Moreover, a rejected child is likely to be more dependent to be clingy, intensely possessive, and to seek parental approval , nurturance, attention, and physical contact than the accepted child, because it seems or at least acceptance -rejection theory postulates that if a child’s “significant others” are rejecting, his needs for warmth and affection are unfulfilled and he will, up to a point, increase his efforts to get love and attention. In other words, he will become dependent. Beyond a certain point the dependency response may be extinguished or transformed. The seriously rejected child has not learned how to give love because he has never known a loving parent after whom he can model his own behavior, and for reasons described below, even though he craves affection he has difficulty accepting it. In order to protect himself from more emotional hurt, the rejected child tends to wrap his emotions in cotton, to incest his emotions. Ultimately he may stop trying to get affection from the people warm, lasting, intimate relations with others. His attachments tend to be troubled by emotional constriction or defensiveness, and in extreme cases the rejected child may become apathetic or emotionally bland or flat, in additions, as a result of the grave psychological damage brought about by rejection, the rejected child is inclined to have less tolerance for stress, and he is therefore likely to be less emotionally stable than those who were accepted as children. The rejected is apt to become resentful or angry at his parents, as well as fretful of more rejection, thereby producing what we call “ defensive” independence or emotional withdrawal from them, in so doing, the child initiates a process of counter rejection. Behind his defensive independence or emotional detachment is often an unrecognized longing to reestablish a warm, nurturing relationship with his parents. Much of this process seems to be what Bowly (1973) called anxious attachment for younger children. The rejected child is especially likely to become hostile, aggressive or passive aggressive if rejection takes the form of parental hostility. Under these conditions, he is provided with an aggressive model to emulate, and thus his own aggressive responses may intensify settings where person are not allowed to express aggression overtly, however, rejected children are likely to have problems managing their hostility. Suppressed, over controlled aggression is often expressed in such disguised or symbolic forms as a worried preoccupation about aggression, aggressive fantasies or dreams, or in an unusual concern about the real or imagined aggression of others. The major objective for the present investigation was to identify parentally accepted and parentally rejected 10th class girls belonging to three socio economic status levels from five English medium schools of the valley and compare them on self-esteem and achievement motivation. For this purpose reliable and valid tools were selected and administered on the sample of 10 class girls. The data was analysed statistically by using mean, S.D. and‘t’ values. In the light of the results discussed above it is safe to conclude that the maximum parental acceptance ( 39.74%) has been found in the middle class and the minimum acceptance (23.71%) in lower class. The maximum parental rejection (37.82%) has been evidenced in lower class and the minimum parental rejection (28.20%) has been found in upper class. It has been found that parentally accepted and parentally rejected girls differ significantly in their self-esteem. The subgroup analysis has also

the same way middle class parentally accepted girls have been found to differ significantly from middle class rejected girls while as lower class parentally accepted girls have no significant difference as compared to lower class parentally rejected girls in their self-esteem. It will be pertinent to mention here that saaydrea (1980) has also arrived at somewhat similar findings. He has found that adolescents perceptions of self-esteem and self-adequacy varied directly with their perception of both maternal and paternal warmth. Within the group of parental accepted girls it has been found that upper class, middle class and lower class girls differ significantly from each other in respect of their self-esteem. Upper class parentally accepted girls have been found to possess higher self-esteem. Whereas lower class accepted girls have been found to possess lower self-esteem. Within the group of parentally rejected girls it has been found that upper class, middle class and lower class differ significantly from each other in their self-esteem middle class parentally rejected girls have been found to possess higher self-esteem whereas upper class rejected girls have found to possess lower self-esteem. However Ready (1966) has found that students from lower classes were high in self-esteem when compared to students in the upper classes. It has further been revealed that parentally accepted (PA) and parentally rejected (PR) girls are significantly different in their achievement motivation. The sub-group analysis has also confirmed the same, it has been found that upper class parentally rejected girls in their achievement motivation. Middle class parentally accepted girls have no significantly difference when compared with middle class parentally rejected girls while as lower class parentally accepted girls have been found to differ significantly from lower class parentally rejected in their achievement motivation, in the similar attempt of McClelland et al. (1953) has found that sons who perceived their fathers as having rejected them had higher n-achievement scores than the sons whose father’s loved and accepted them.

The present study has further revealed that upper class parentally accepted girls; middle class accepted girls from lower class accepted girls in their achievement motivation. However, the difference between upper class and lower class girls on achievement motivation has failed to arrive at any level of significance. In case of parentally rejected group it has been found that upper class, middle class and lower class differ significantly form each other in their achievement motivation. However, mean score favors upper class and middle class girls in their achievement motivation, it will not be out of place to mention here that no study has been conducted on parentally accepted and rejected girls in relation to self-esteem, socio economic status and achievement motivation. However, Sahoo and Panda (1982) has observed that no relationship exists between socio economic status and achievement motivation.

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