This research was undertaken to explore the process of identification in young children as it relates to the development of sex-role stereotyping, adult role formation, self-control, self-recrimination, prosocial forms of aggression, guilt feelings, and other expressions of conscience. The study tested the intercorrelations among various behaviors seen as reflecting identification, and looked at child-rearing antecedents of these behaviors as well.

The sample consisted of 40 nursery school children, 21 boys and 19 girls, and their parents. The children's mean age was 4 3/4 years old and the parents ranged in age from 22 to 45 years.

Parental data were collected by taped interviews. Forty mothers and 40 fathers were interviewed separately using similar forms. Interviews inquired about caretaking activities; methods of handling early feeding, toilet training, disobedience, sexual activity, dependency, and aggression; attitudes and feelings about the child's independence, achievement, moral behavior, self-control, responsibility, and adult-typed and sex-role-stereotyped behavior; and family atmosphere and parents' attitudes toward themselves and each other. Paper-and-pencil instruments consisted of a demographic data sheet, mother's attitude scales, a child behavior-maturity scale answered by mothers, and a Winterbottom scale measuring the mother's pressure on her child to develop independence. Observational measures were two half-hour observations of mother-child interaction, and time-sampled behavioral observations of the child's activities while at school. The extensive child assessment included a variety of scales, experimental situation, and projective play techniques which tapped preference for sex-typed activities and roles, tendency to assume an adult role, resistance to temptation, guilt responses, and manipulative fantasy behavior.

The Murray Center holds all computer-accessible data from parent and child measures. Typed transcripts of the mother and father interviews are also available.