Self-appraisals, actual appraisals and reflected appraisals of preadolescent children

The relationship between children's self-perceptions, children's perceptions of others' appraisal (i.e., reflected appraisals) and others' actual appraisals reported by mothers, fathers and teachers were examined. The Self-Description Questionnaire 1 (Marsh, 1988) was presented to 428 children. Parents and teachers were given an adapted form. Additionally, children were asked for reflected appraisals of their mothers, fathers and teachers according to the scales of the SDQ1. Results suggest that the reflected appraisal process is in fact more complicated than originally assumed by the theorist of symbolic interactionism. Thus, besides direct effects from actual appraisal on reflected appraisal and reflected appraisal on self-appraisal, there are also indications of an effect by actual appraisals on self- and reflected appraisals, especially for academic self-concept. Furthermore, results indicate that different significant others have a different impact on the self-perceptions of preadolescent children.