THE EFFECTS 0F SELF~ESTEEM 0N ADOLESCENT DAYDREAMING Thesis for the Degree of M. A. :WCHBGAN STA'E‘E UNEVERSETY KAREN L. CLUTE 1%9 ”I? t s LIBRARY { Michigan State i’ University {‘ ‘ 'Iu um W n uuxILHIN'NJ‘N“ 3 1293 ABSTRACT THE EFFECTS OF SELF-ESTEEM ON ADOLESCENT DAYDREAMING BY Karen L. Clute According to Fenichel, . . . There are two types of fantasy; creative fantasy, which prepares some later action, and daydreaming fantasy, the refuge for wishes that cannot be fulfilled. . . . (Fenichel, 1945, p. 50) Whenever reality becomes unpleasant, more pictorial daydream substitutes are sought. (Fenichel, 1945, p. 51) This implies that the person with lowered self-esteem, for whom reality is unpleasant, is likely to have non-reality oriented daydreams while the person with high self-esteem is likely to experience reality oriented daydreams. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that differences in adolescents' self-esteem are correlated with daydream fantasies, i.e. that low self-esteem leads to reality distorted daydreams while high self-esteem maintains reality oriented daydreams. The testing instru- ments were Coopersmith's test of self-esteem, and two measures developed by the author: a daydream questionnaire, and a sentence completion test of self-esteem.- The last Karen L. Clute two of these are comprised of four subscales: physical appearance, school life, relations with boys, and relations with friends. The Daydream Questionnaire ascertained what aspects of life a teenager changes in her daydreams and hence provides a measure of reality orientation of the in- dividual's daydreams. The Sentence Completion Test, Day- dream Questionnaire, and the Coopersmith test were admini- stered to seventh and eighth grade girls in DeWitt, Michigan, and seventh grade girls in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The hypothesized relationships between self-esteem and reality orientation of daydreams were confirmed for the DeWitt sample but not the Williamsport. The results were significant for the Coopersmith esteem test, but not the Sentence Completion Test. The thesis explores possible explanations for differences between the two samples. Submitted to: ,I/VIQ L wzfg/ . Jo n Paul McKinney, Chzéfiman Dr. Ellen Strommen Dr. James Uleman 3.14. >4 aim ren L. Clute’ THE EFFECTS OF SELF-ESTEEM ON ADOLESCENT DAYDREAMING BY \" Karen L. Clute A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Psychology 1969 To Richard ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A hearty thank-you goes to all the teachers and students who made this research effort possible. Mr. Enderle, the Principal of DeWitt Intermediate School, and the Principal of Curtin Junior High School in Williams- port graciously offered their students' and teachers' time and cooperation. The teachers, especially Miss Curtis, deserve a special thank-you for donating their classes and helping with the data collection. I sincerely want to thank all the girls who cheerfully filled out the ques- tionnaires and made my job very pleasant.. I hope they enjoyed reading the inventory even if they did not enjoy filling in question after question. For his sympathy, criticisms, inspiration, humor, and unfailing patience, I want to thank Dr. John McKinney. With his guidance I learned to enjoy research and to trust my own intuition. Dr. Uleman and Dr. Strommen offered their criticisms and suggestions. For their helpful hints and support in time of need, I am very grateful. To my friends, who faithfully bore my gripes and tantrums, I offer my gratitude and congratulations for a job well done. iii LIST OF TABLES . . LIST OF APPENDICES INTRODUCTION . . . METHOD . . . . . . RESULTS . . . . . DISCUSSION . . . . SUMMARY . . . . . BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . APPENDICES . . . . TABLE OF CONTENTS iv Page vi 14 19 25 27 29 Table 1. LIST OF TABLES Correlations between the Self-Esteem Inven- tory and the total Daydream Questionnaire score for Williamsport and DeWitt samples Correlations between the Sentence Completion Test and the total Daydream Questionnaire score for Williamsport and DeWitt samples Correlation coefficients for the DeWitt Daydream sUbscales and the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory . . . . . . . . . . T-tests between DeWitt and Williamsport samples on the Sentence Completion Test, Self-Esteem Inventory, and Daydream Questionnaire full scale and subscale scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Correlation coefficients for DeWitt and Williamsport samples between measures of daydreaming and self-esteem . . . . . . . Lie scale scores of DeWitt and Williamsport groups 0 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o - o o ’ Page 14 15 16 17 18 21 Appendix A. B. C. D TEST OF SELF-ESTEEM SENTENCE COMPLETION TEST GRADUATE STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE SELF-ESTEEM INVENTORY LIST OF APPENDICES DAYDREAM QUESTIONNAIRE LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS RAW DATA vi Page 29 33 35 37 41 45 46 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that differences in adolescents' self-esteem are correlated with daydream fantasies. The daydream serves a different. function depending on whether the dreamer has high or low self—esteem.» For the adolescent with high self-esteem, daydreams function as problem solving techniques. For the adolescent with low self-esteem, daydreams function to idealize the self, or as wishfulfilling fantasies, or as a method for gaining self-knowledge or acceptance by fancied role playing and depicting oneself in a variety of physical and/or personality transformations. According to Fenichel, "There are two types of fantasy: creative fantasy, which prepares some later action, and daydreaming fantasy, the refuge for wishes that cannot be fulfilled. . . ." (Fenichel, 1945, p. 50,) "If the ego is weak or tired or asleep or without confi- dence in its own ability and desirous of a receptive type of mastery, then the pictorial type of thinking becomes Imare attractive than objective intelligence. . . . When- ever reality becomes unpleasant, more pictorial daydream substitutes are sought." (Fenichel, 1945, p. 51) This immdies that the person with lowered self-concept or 1 self-esteem is likely to daydream. What about the indi- vidual with high self-esteem? Does he not daydream? It is hypothesized that the person with lowered self-esteem is likely to experience fanciful, wishfulfilling daydreams in which reality is distorted or changed. This is:in keep- ing with Fenichel's ideas.. However, it is also possible that the high-esteem person does daydream and his day- dreams are reality oriented and problem solving, which involves little reality distortion or change. [Singer found that 96% of his sample of college students daydream (Singer, 1966). Therefore, it is assumed that all adoles- cents daydream to a considerable extent.] Using high school students, Rosenberg (1965) found of low self-esteem adolescents 59% were high in daydreaming frequency and only 13% were high in daydream frequency who were also high in self-esteem. Hence, the evolution of the general hypotheses of this study: low self-esteem leads to reality distorted daydreams while high self-esteem meaintains reality oriented daydreams. The term daydreaming encompasses varied mental activities. Visual imagery, wishing, exploration of the future via trial runs (Singer, 1966), problem-solving Ineditation, and aesthetic or poetic imaginings (Singer and bchraven, 1961) are some of these mental activities. An Operational definition is presented by J. L. Singer and J. S. Antrobus, i.e. daydreaming is a "reported train of thought that may occur as a shift of attention away from an ongoing task of the external perceptual situation." (Singer and Antrobus, 1963, p. 188) In 1961, Jerome L. Singer published the first of a series of articles on daydreaming which utilize his General Daydream Questionnaire (GDQ). Singer and Schonbar (1961) administered a battery of tests to graduate students to test the hypothesis that closer identification with a mother figure is related to introspective tendencies, be- cause mothers represent inhibition of impulses into action more than overt active fathers. Hence, more women than men daydream. General support for the hypothesis was found through significant correlations in the predicted direc- tions (Singer and Schonbar, 1961). Daydreaming has been related to eye movements (Singer, Antrobus, Antrobus, 1964); anxiety and repression scores (Wagman, 1965); and informa- tion processing (Singer, Antrobus, and Greenberg, 1966). Singer and McCraven (1961) reported no differences in day- dreaming frequency due to sex, marital status, or number of siblings. They found that daydreaming frequency was lhigher for people reared in the city than in the suburb; 1ans in line with reality planning while girls daydream arbout marriage and physical attractiveness, but not expressing any realistic desires to work toward these goals (Douvan and Adelson, 1966). To conclude that girls daydream more than boys is perhaps premature. However, it does seem safe to conclude that adolescent girls are more willing to relate their fantasy experiences to a female experimenter than boys are. (Douvan and Adelson's interviewer was a middle-aged woman.) Coupled with Singer's findings concerning identi- fication with the mother figure and daydreaming, it was decided to simplify this experimental design by using only female subjects. The research in self-concept or self-esteem has been quite extensive, adolescent self-esteem being one phase of that research. Stanley Coopersmith (1967) devel- Oped a fifty-eight item test of self-esteem, the Self-Esteem Inventory (SEI), (Appendix D) designed for fifth and sixth grade youngsters. It was found that self-confidence and trust in one's convictions are related to self-esteem (COppersmith, 1967). After analysis of social and religious status, Coopersmith (1967, p. 86) concluded that the "psy- chological bases of esteem are more dependent on close, personal relationships and the immediate environment than upon material benefits or prestige rankings in the com- Inunity at large." Areas such as school work are related to self-esteem. Perkins and Shanon (1965) also related the SEI to intellectual and achievement measures. Rosen and Ross (1968) found a positive relation between satis- faction with body image and satisfaction with self-concept. Self-esteem is related to neat, attractive appearance, friendly, demur manner, and quiet good humor if these attributes of popular girls can be said to denote high self-esteem (Frazier and Lisonbee, 1960). Frazier and Lisonbee (1960) found that adolescents are concerned with their body and facial appearance. Taking all of these findings into consideration, a sentence completion test of self-esteem was developed utilizing sentence stems dealing with areas of social importance to adolescents, i.e. school life, physical appearance, relationships with boys, and relationships with friends. This self-esteem test then becomes the independent variable in an effort to quantify the relationship between self-esteem and day- dreaming, i.e. that low self-esteem leads to reality distorted daydreams while high self-esteem maintains reality oriented daydreams. Hypotheses to be Tested The testing instruments are C00persmith's test of self-esteem, a daydream questionnaire, and a sentence com- pletion test of self-esteem. The last two of these con- sist of four subscales: physical appearance, school life, relations with boys, and relations with friends. These tests were designed to test the following hypotheses.- Subjects scoring low in self-esteem on the Coopersmith test and sentence completion test will change the characteristics of their personal life more often in their daydreams than subjects scoring high in self- esteem. a. Subjects scoring low in self-esteem in school life via the subtest on the sentence completion test (Appendix B) will change the characteristics of their school situation more often in their day- dreams than subjects scoring high in school life self-esteem. Subjects scoring low in self-esteem in physical appearance via the appropriate subtest of the sentence completion test will change their physi- cal characteristics more often in their daydreams than subjects scoring high in physical appearance self-esteem. Subjects scoring low in self-esteem in relations with boys via the apprOpriate subtest of the sen- tence completion test will picture their relations with boys as changed in their daydreams more often than subjects scoring high in self-esteem in rela- tion with boys. Subjects scoring low in self-esteem in relations with friends via the apprOpriate subtest of the sentence completion test will picture-their rela- tions with friends as changed in their daydreams more often than subjects scoring high in self- esteem in relations with friends. The scores of the self-esteem subtest and matching daydream subtest will correlate more often than the score of the self-esteem subtest with any other day- dream situation. The DeWitt and Williamsport samples will not differ significantly on the scores of the sentence completion test of self-esteem, the self-esteem inventory, or the daydream questionnaire. METHOD Subjects The subjects were early adolescent girls, 43 in the seventh grade and 24 in the eighth grade, ranging in age from 11 to 14 years. Thirty-nine girls were tested in DeWitt, Michigan, on December 12, 1968 and January 16, 1969. (Test—retest reliability was done only on the DeWitt sample.) Thirty-five girls were tested in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on December 19, 1968. Ten Williamsport in- ventories were incomplete and hence discarded. Due to absences,and the incomplete inventory, test-retest reli- ability was calculated for 33 DeWitt girls. However, nine girls took the test only once and these inventories were added to the group of 33. Hence the final data analysis used 42 DeWitt and 25 Williamsport girls. Independent Variable As previously listed, the hypotheses to be tested «depend on four subscales of a twenty-one item sentence completion test of self-esteem, the SCT. Originally, xxtnety-one sentence completion stems were developed using 'bopics relevant to adolescent girls (Appendix A). The Imtnety-one items were reduced to twenty-one by a criteria 10 of .37 or greater point biserial correlation with the total score on the test (Appendix B). A correlation of .367 is significant at the .05 level (Guilford, 1954). The four subscales were devised by inspection of the SCT. In order to verify the experimenter's division of the twenty-one items, a questionnaire was given to seven women graduate students in psychology to obtain their division of the SCT into the same four categories (Appendix C). The results are: school life (Item No. 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, l4, l6) chosen by six out of seven students; physical appearance (Item No. 1, 12, 17, 21) chosen by all seven students; relations with boys (Items No. 5, 7, 15, 20) chosen by five out of seven students; and relations with friends (Items No. 6, 9, 10, 13, 18, 19) chosen by six out of seven students. The SCT is scored for each subscale and the total test by assigning a positive answer three points, a neutral answer two points, a negative answer one point, and a blank no points and then summing (Iver all items in the particular subscale. An interrater :reliability coefficient of .91 was determined on the Sen- ‘tence Completion Test on the first administration to the btichigan sample. The test-retest reliability coefficient is .559. In the battery of tests given to the subjects was ixuzluded S. Coopersmith's self-esteem inventory, SEI (Appendix D). This test contains fifty-eight items. The 11 subject checks "Like me" or "Unlike me" for each sentence which comprises the test. The SEI was included to provide a measure of concurrent validity for the Sentence Comple- tion Test. The score is the number of items checked "Like Me" which are considered indicative of low self-esteem.- High self-esteem items were No. 2, 4, 10, ll, 14, 18, 21, 23, 24, 28, 29, 32, 36, 45, 57. Low self-esteem items are No. l, 3, 7, 8, 9, 15, 16, 17, 22, 25, 30, 31, 35, 37, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 58. Items No. 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, 20, 33, 34, 40, 41, 47, 48, 54, 55 were ex- cluded because they make up the parent and lie subscales of the SEI. The test-retest reliability coefficient for the SEI is .78 (for the Michigan sample). Dependent Variable The last test in the battery, the DDQ, was a day- dream questionnaire (Appendix E). The questionnaire is fifteen items in length, the first three are concerned with amount of time spent daydreaming and whether the subject is pictured in her daydreams. The other twelve items are a measure of which aspects of the adolescent's life she pictures as the same or changed in her daydreams. These items also divide into the same four subscale categories of the Sentence Completion Test. Hence, a correspondence can Jbe drawn between a particular self-esteem subscale and daydream subscale. There are thirteen adjective dimensions (Items No. 10, 13, 15) for school life; ten adjective 12 dimensions (Items No. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) for physical appearance; twelve adjective dimensions (Item No. 12) for relations with boys; and twelve adjective dimensions (Items No. 11, 14) for relations with friends.) The score is the number of dimensions checked as the same for each subscale.and for the full scale. The test-retest reli— ability coefficient is .643. Procedure 1. To develop the Sentence Completion Test, ninety—one subject stems of sentences were created while keeping in mind the activities and ideas considered important to a seventh grade girl. 2. The ninety-one items were administered, scored,-and submitted to the MSU Scoring Office for an item analy- sis. A point biserial correlation coefficient of .37 or greater was the selection criteria for final items of the Sentence Completion Test. 1 i h i 3. In order to ascertain the validity of dividing the Sentence Completion Test into four subscales, graduate students were given a short questionnaire, in which they divided the Sentence Completion Test items into four subscales. 4. The Daydream Questionnaire was developed to ascertain in an easily comprehensible fashion what aSpects of life are seen as changed in the adolescent's daydreams. 13 The Sentence Completion Test, Daydream Questionnaire, and the Self-Esteem Inventory were administered to thirty-nine seventh and eighth grade girls in DeWitt, Michigan, and thirty-five seventh grade girls in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The battery was admini- stered twice within five weeks to the DeWitt girls as a measure of test reliability. Statistical tests were run to determine differences between the DeWitt and Williamsport groups. Data analysis consisted of a series of correlational tests, relating high and low self-esteem subscale scores with their corresponding daydream subscale scores. RESULTS The hypothesized relationships between self-esteem and reality orientation of daydreams is confirmed for the DeWitt sample but not the Williamsport sample if the Coopersmith esteem test, not the sentence completion esteem test, served as the independent variable. As shown in Table 1, the correlation between the Coopersmith esteem test and the Daydream Questionnaire is significant for the DeWitt group. Table l.--Corre1ations between the Self-Esteem Inventory and the total Daydream Questionnaire score for Williamsport and DeWitt samples. Group Correlation Coefficient DeWitt 0.34* Williamsport -0.05 * p < .05 Although the Coopersmith test is more reliable “than.the Sentence Completion Test, the two self-esteem 'tests are correlated at 0.49. Hence, results similar to tflubse of Table l are expected using the Sentence Completion 14 15 Test. However as shown in Table 2, there is little cor- relation between the Sentence Completion Test and the Daydream Questionnaire. (The correlation for the combined sample was not computed due to the insignificance of the individual sample correlations.) Table 2.--Correlations between the Sentence Completion Test and the total Daydream Questionnaire score for Williamsport and DeWitt samples. Group Correlation Coefficient DeWitt -0.02 Williamsport —0.09 Because the DeWitt Coopersmith self-esteem and total daydream correlation is significant, correlations :fiar the Coopersmith test with the four subscales of the Daydream Questionnaire were calculated for the DeWitt sample. Table 3 contains these coefficients. The research design, as originally planned, stated thsrt the DeWitt and Williamsport samples would be analyzed as