Perceptions of Childhood: Present Functioning and Past Events

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
One-hundred males 65-92 were interviewed by one researcher who encouraged them to reminisce about childhood and to assess their childhood as predominantly happy or unhappy. In addition, ordinal position, family size, rural or urban environment, and education were collected. subjects were then seen by two other researchers, who dealt only with current functioning rated on a 21-item social dysfunction rating scale. Differences in functioning between the happy and unhappy groups were highly significant (multivariate p < .004). There were no differences in age, birth order, or education between the groups; however, subjects with happy childhood had more siblings and were reared in a rural setting (p < .05). correlations between childhood variables and later functioning were low and few. Lower education correlated with more areas of dysfunctioning than any other variable. Contrary to other findings, large family size and rural setting in early life related to happy memories and better over-all adjustment.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: