Adolescents and adults: ratings and expected ratings of themselves and each other

This study compares perceptions of adolescents and adults on twenty personality characteristics. Ratings based on tables originally constructed by Hess and Goldblatt (1957) were applied to 35 adolescents randomly selected from the population of a Southern California high school. These subjects then took complementary forms home for their parents to fill out, 45 of which were returned. The results were compared with those obtained by Hess and Goldblatt, and were further analyzed for possible differences by age, sex, ethnicity, and family size. The differences between parent and adolescent views were much less extreme than the differences found by Hess and Goldblatt. Their conclusion that conflict is based upon divergent "expected reputations" was marginally supported. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed no significant differences on any of the variables examined: age, sex, ethnicity or family size.