ERIC Number: ED196538
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1976
Pages: 18
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Young Children's Conception of Physical Attractiveness as Evidenced in Human Figure Drawings.
Moran, James D., III; And Others
In order to assess young children's conceptions of "pretty" and "ugly", twenty-nine 5- and 6-year-old children (14 male and 15 female) were asked to draw a pretty person and an ugly person. These drawings were scored for developmental maturity according to Goodenough Draw-A-Man Test and for emotionality by means of the Koppitz Scale of Emotional Indicators. The data confirmed that young children do make discriminations on the basis of physical attractiveness that affect their drawings. The children's drawings of an ugly person reflected a lower level of developmental maturity ("p"< .001) and greater emotionality ("p"< .001) than drawings of a pretty person. These differences between pretty-person and ugly-person drawings suggest that young children have a well-developed concept of physical attractiveness that conforms to the cultural stereotype found in older children and adults, in which "ugly" produces more primitive and emotional responding than "pretty". The results underscore the need to be alert to the presence of transient emotional states in the testing of young children. (Author/MP)
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Oklahoma State Univ., Stillwater.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A