A comparison between a girl of 8 years old and one of 16 years old, talking about who they are free essay sample

Two girls, an 8 year old and a sixteen year old were interviewed talking about who they are, following Rosenberg’s categories . It was found that there is a developmental trend between the girls. The locus of self – knowledge shifts with the age from relating on others to relating to the self. Introduction: Younger children focus on describing external characteristics when they talk about who they are, for example, physical appearance and routine activities they participate in, on things that other people are able to observe. As children get older, they focus more on internal characteristics, emotions, relationships with others. Do children have an independent sense of self or is it simply a reflection of the ideas of others? Rosenberg called this locus of self – knowledge and he explored it by asking questions like: If I asked you and your mother how smart you were and you gave different answers, who would be right? Younger children were more likely to rely on another person as the reference point. Only 15 per cent placed the locus of self-knowledge within themselves, comparing with nearly 50 per cent of the older children. The locus of self – knowledge changes with age. This suggests that children come to understand that no one else can fully understand their experiences, feelings. Methods Design In this practical report children and young people were interviewed about what they think about themselves. Participants The persons who were interviewed were two girls, a 8 years old from a primary school called Annie and a 16 years old from secondary school, called Kirsty. Both of them were from Milton Keynes. Materials The interviews were conducted by two members of the ED209 module team: Kieron Sheeby with the younger girl and Peter Barnes with the older girl. Procedure Two schools, one primary and one secondary, from Milton Keynes were approach to identify children who are willing to be recorded talking about themselves. After a number of children agreed to take part of the practical study their parents were asked to sign a form giving consent to their participation and to the use of the audio-recording for the ED209 module. At the beginning of each interview the participants were told that they could ask for the recording to be stopped at any time if they found themselves saying something that they didn’t wish to be recorded. By asking the parents to sigh the form and telling the children that they can stop the recording any time the Code of Human Research Ethics British Psychological Society was respected in this practical study. The interviews took place in 2005 and the children were recorded in their schools during a school day. Annie, the 8 years old had the interview with Kieron Sheeby in a building adjacent to their school which was familiar to them because it was where they regularly went for PE lessons. Annie was accompanied by a classroom assistant. Kirsty, the 16 years old had the interview with Peter Barnes in a small room opposite the school secretary’s office. In both interviews were present the sound recorder and the producer. A microphone was positioned for the recordings to be at their best. The children were not inhibited by the presence of other people in the room or by the equipment. Results: The different categories that how two girls, an 8 year old and a 16 year old use to talk about self-description are summarised in Table 1. The raw scores are provided in Appendix A. The data was collected following Rosenberg’s categories. Table 1 Rosenberg’s categories applied for an 8 years old girl and 16 years old girl Rosenberg’s categories Annie – 8 years old Kirsty – 16 years old Physical 4 1 Character 2 5 Relationships 0 2 Inner 0 2 The results of the report showed that the eight year old girl used physical and character categories when she talked about who she is. The sixteen years old is a bit more diversified, using all of the four categories to describe her, but her favourite one is the character category. Talking about relationships and inner categories it could be seen that there is a nice difference between the girls. The eight year old didn’t talk about it, while the sixteen year old choose two of each to describe her. Discussion The results of this report indicate that child’s self-description shows changes with age. The outcome of this report is a pattern of results predicted by Rosenberg: most of the descriptors used by younger children were about physical activity and physical characteristics. The older children were more likely to use the character traits to define the self. The results indicated that the eight years old uses the physical and character categories to describe her, while the sixteen years old goes more for the character and inner to talk about who she is. The younger girl has no relationships and inner categories descriptions in her way of talking about who she is. For the older girl physical categories descriptions are not so important when she talks about who she is. In Annie’s interview there is a lack of consistency between the question that is asked and the answer that is given. The 8 year old doesn’t properly understand some of the questions. For example when she was asked if she has any weak points, she replied: â€Å"my ears†¦my legs†. Locus of self-esteem is following Rosenberg’s findings. When Annie was asked who would be right if her mother and she were asked the question: How is she doing at Maths and they both would give a different answer. Annie was relying on her mother as the reference point of her answer: â€Å"she’s seen all my Maths works from the reception†. The locus of self-knowledge changes with the age. Kirsty was asked if her mother and she would give the same answer to the question if she’s well behaved home. And if not who will be right? Kirsty’s answer was using the personal characteristics: â€Å"they think I’m being moody, but I think I’m funny†, she understands that her parents can’t understand her experience and feelings as she understands them. There is a developmental trends in the way in which these two girls describe themselves and the way how the interviews go. The sixteen year old seems to understand better the questions that were asked. She also was framed in all the four categories when she talked about who she is. Whereas the eight year old didn’t quite get all the questions and she choose only two of those four categories to describe who she is. The results from this project look like young children use more physical categories than the older children to talk about who they are. O well it’s not possible to generalize these findings because there were interviewed only two girls. And there are no boys in the discussion. The validity of these interviews is a concern. A development of this study, therefore, would be to extend the number of the children and also will be interesting to bring some boys into the interviews and find out what do they say about who they are. If the same interviews would be done by other researchers I don’t think that the findings under the same circumstances would be the same. It’s true the schools were the interviews were held are an environment where the girls were used to, but in the same time school requires a performance at a certain level. The harmony between the parts and the quality of sticking together are not there. The interview was held in a nosy environment and it had to be stopped couple of times. The reliability is very low. Conclusion This practical report showed that there is a difference between a girl of 8 years old and one of 16 years old, talking about who they are. There is a lack of locus of self – knowledge in the eight year old, while the sixteen year old has a good aspect of her self development.