The effect of self-esteem, family structure, locus of control, and career goals on adolescent leadership behavior.

McCullough, Michael ; Ashbridge, Donna ; Pegg, Rebecca 等

INTRODUCTION

Adolescents who distinguish themselves as leaders in high school reveal a combination of intellectual and social adjustment. Seeing students become leaders is usually the culmination of years of effort on the part of parents, teachers, and the student. The student's leadership activity could simultaneously be viewed as a measure of past success and a predictor of future success, but perhaps most importantly, a sign of psychological and social adjustment. Such adjustment has been extensively researched. Some of the variables considered important have included self-esteem, self-concept, locus of control, family structure and career aspirations.

One study by Leung, Salili, and Baber (1986) found an intercorrelation among Chinese adolescents' self-esteem, locus of control, intelligence, family environment and common adolescent problems. Anxiety over performance and improper social conduct were related to self-perceived problems such as low self-esteem, external locus of control, and family cohesion (degree of commitment, help and support family members give one another), organization (degree of importance given to clear organization and structure in planning family activities and responsibilities), and conflict (amount of openly expressed anger, aggression, and conflict among family members.

In another study concerned with social adjustment, Rosenberg, Schooler, and Schoenbach (1989) found that high self-esteem adolescents were more likely to perform well in school, not be depressed, and not be socially delinquent. Teasing out the cause and effect relationships between self-esteem and other variables, Rosenberg et al. concluded that (1) low self-esteem fosters delinquency and that particularly in lower socioeconomic groups delinquency fosters higher self-esteem, (2) self-esteem is largely attributable to the effect of school performance, (3) the relationship between self-esteem and depression seems to be bidirectional. The results of a study by De Man and De-Visse (1987) showed that alienation--withdrawal due to maladjustment to society--is related to low self-esteem and an external locus of control.

Holman and Woodroffe-Patrick (1988) found that children from single-parent homes were less happy than those from two-parent homes even when controlling for amount of conflict. Amato (1986) found a weak negative relationship between marital conflict and self-esteem in adolescents. The negative effects of conflict tended to be strongest when relationships with both parents were poor.

The aforementioned studies have focused primarily on determining which variables are related to alienation, delinquency, and other signs of maladjustment. However, a few studies have focused on the variables associated with signs of adjustment, such as leadership and career focus. Anderson and Schneier (1978) studying a sample of college students with a mean age of 21.7, found internal locus of control to be related to leadership performance. Leaders were more likely to be internal in LOC than nonleaders. Superior group performance occurred under the direction of an internal LOC leader. Another study by Chiu (1990) found that high school students who had a career goal had higher self-esteem.

From these studies it seems reasonable to suggest that adolescent adjustment is related to high self-esteem, an internal locus of control, and family structure. It also seems reasonable to believe that leadership behavior and career goals are signs of adjustment. In fact, it stands to reason that students who are leaders among their high school peers might aspire to more prestigious careers, further testifying to their psychological and social adjustment.

The purpose of the present study was to further address the question of which variables are related to leadership behavior--behavior that seems to clearly signify adjustment. In particular, this study assessed the independent and combined effects of self-esteem, locus of control, family structure, and career goals on leadership behavior among adolescents.

The primary hypotheses were that those adolescents identified as being high in leadership potential would be higher in self-esteem, have an internal locus of control, have more prestigious career aspirations and be from a two-biological-parent family more often than would adolescents who had not been so designated.

METHOD

A questionnaire was administered to two groups of adolescents. One group was comprised of high school students identified as student leaders or as students with leadership potential; the other served as the comparison group.

Leadership Group

The leadership group consisted of 79 students chosen by guidance counselors and high school teachers to participate in an annual leadership conference for high school juniors and seniors. The students were chosen for participation in the camp on the basis of their demonstrated leadership potential. The students all had demonstrated academic excellence and involvement in school activities and leadership roles.

The entire leadership group responded to the survey at the same time, were assembled in one room, and followed instructions not to discuss responses with one another.

Comparison Group

The nonleadership group consisted of 124 students chosen pseudo-randomly from three high schools in the same geographic area from which the leadership group was chosen. High school guidance counselors assembled classes of juniors and seniors who could be conveniently scheduled to respond to the questionnaire. There was no fear of a biased sample since the guidance counselors were not aware of the purposes of the study and chose the groups solely on the basis of convenience.

There is no reason to believe that these groups of students were heterogeneous with respect to social adjustment and leadership. They responded to the questionnaire in groups and were instructed not to discuss responses with one another.

Measures

The questionnaire consisted of questions related to family income, birth order of the respondent, family structure, and career goals. It also included a locus-of-control (LOC) subscale (from Cherrington's (1989, adaptation of Rotter, 1971) and Rosenberg's commonly used self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965).

Treiman's (1977) rating of the prestige of different occupations was used to assign a value to each student's goal (e.g., medical doctor was high at 78, architect was rated 62, mechanic 43, technician 30). There were 58 different careers mentioned by those who had a career goal. In some cases the career goal did not coincide entirely with the Treiman's job title, and the general category was used (e.g., international business management received the prestige rating for professionals). Those who aspired to "go to college" were assigned a prestige ranking of "professional." Responses which did not list a career goal were assigned a zero in the analysis.

RESULTS

Demographic Data

Of the 203 participants, 75% (154) were from families in which their biological (or perhaps adoptive) parents lived together, 25% (50) were from families where the parents were separated or divorced. Socioeconomic status (SES) was based on family wealth: 38% (78) of the respondents reported that their family was either wealthy or above average, while 62% (126) reported that their family was average or below average in income.

The two groups were not significantly different with respect to: SES ([[Chi].sup.2] = .282, df = 1, p = .596) or birth order ([[Chi].sup.2] = 5.133, df = 1, p = .077) with birth order trichotomized into firstborn, secondborn, and all others.

Tests of the Hypotheses

Four hypotheses were tested using analysis of variance after dichotomization of each of the variables into high and low categories. Three hypotheses were supported; one was not. Interaction effects were also examined and only one was significant.

Hypothesis 1. The leadership group will be higher in internal LOC than the nonleadership group. This hypothesis was supported (F = 4.10; df = 1, 192; p [is less than] .044).

Hypothesis 2. The leadership group will aspire to more prestigious careers than the nonleadership group, This hypothesis was supported by the data (F = 14.85; df = 1,192; p [is less than] .0002).

Hypothesis 3. The leadership group was more apt to be living with two biological (or perhaps adoptive) parents than the nonleadership group. This hypothesis was supported (F = 7.21, df = 1, 192; p [is less than] .0079).

Hypothesis 4. The leadership group would be higher in self-esteem than the nonleadership group. This hypothesis was not supported (F = .038, df = 1, p [is less than] .536).

Interaction Effects

A priori analysis of interaction effects revealed one significant interaction. For the leadership group self-esteem was correlated with higher goals. However, there was no correlation between self-esteem and career goals in the comparison group.

DISCUSSION

The profile of the adolescent leader that emerges from this study is that of a person with high internal LOC and prestigious career aspirations who lives in a two-parent family structure. Adolescent leaders were not, however, found to be higher in self-esteem than nonleaders. These findings are consistent with previous research.

However, self-esteem was correlated with career goals in the leadership group while no such correlation was found in the nonleadership group. This could indicate that the two groups have different sources of self-esteem. The leadership group may derive self-esteem from career goals while the nonleadership group does not. There is nothing in the present study to answer the question of where the nonleadership group derives self-esteem.

Perhaps it is a tribute to human resilience that self-esteem remains high for people from various performance backgrounds and with futures of varying degrees of uncertainty. However, perhaps a "frontal assault," that is, asking people directly how much they value themselves, is the wrong measurement approach with adolescents. Students with a poor self-concept may respond to general measures of self-esteem less candidly out of deference to what is socially acceptable. Thus, it could be that another, more indirect measurement approach, would be appropriate.

Further, perhaps the concept is too general as measured by the Rosenberg (1965) scale and others. It may be that specific scales such as organization-based self-esteem by Pierce, Gardner, Cummings, and Randall (1989) or Bandura's (1986) construct of self-efficacy, task-related self-esteem, will demonstrate their usefulness in predicting performance or aspirations. The need for scale specificity was addressed by Fisher (1980) when she argued that predicting specific attitudes or behavior with general attitudes will always be difficult. Future research on adolescent self-esteem might be well served by the development of more specific self-esteem scales, scales that deal with such areas as social self-esteem, academic self-esteem, and career self-esteem.

The fact that the leadership group students had high career expectations is consistent with Vroom's (1964) notion that previous successful performance is related to higher performance expectancies.

Another finding of note that those in the leadership group were more apt to be from a traditional, two-parent family. This suggests that performance and perhaps adjustment can be influenced by family structure. Schwartz (1992), reporting on a federal study, indicated that only 12% of children ages 5 to 17 living in a two-biological-parent family had to repeat a grade, whereas, 22% of children from a family with only a formerly married mother or with a stepfather had to repeat a grade. Thirty percent of those from a family with a never-married mother and no father had to repeat a grade. More research is needed in the area of family structure versus family conflict. Long (1986) found that self-esteem of girls was affected more by parental discord than by parental separation. The effects on children of parental divorce, separation, and discord are just beginning to be understood.

The present study introduces a way to measure prestige levels of career aspirations. This procedure could be further refined. A weakness of this study, as with all cross-sectional and correlational studies, is that strong statements about causal relationships cannot be made. A longitudinal study is planned which will follow the present students into their careers to determine the effect of high goals on career success.

Future research should focus on elaboration of the relationships found here and perhaps a refinement of self-esteem measurement among adolescents.

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