THE SELF-CONCEPTION OF DELINQUENT

The main purpose of the present study was to clarify differences of self-conception between two groups, that is, between youths who commit delinquency and those who don't.<BR>To attain this goal, the author made 64 Q-sorting cards. Based on “Stephenson's procedure of structuring samples”, the youths' statements were structured by factors of “Social self”,“Will” and “Self evaluation”. The following hypotheses were examined through the above procedure.<BR>Hypothesis IA: Youth who commit delinquency have “Anti social” self-conception to a high degree.<BR>Hypothesis IA': The above hypothesis IA can also be applied to delinquent under the remedial institutionalization.<BR>Hypothesis IB: Youth who don't commit delinquency have “Social” self-conception to a high degree.<BR>Hypothesis IIA: Youth who commit delinquecy have self-conception of “will” biased either towards “Rigid” or towards “Tender” to a high degree.<BR>Hypothesis IIA': The above hypothesis IIA can also be applied to delinquent under the remedial institutionalization.<BR>Hypothesis IIB: Youth who don't commit delinquency have the self-conception of “Will” unbiased either towards “Rigid” or towards “Tender” to a high degree.<BR>Hypothesis IIIA: Youth who commit delinquecy have “Denial” self-conception to a high degree.<BR>Hypothesis MA': The above hypothesis MA can also be applied to delinquent under the remedial institutionalization.<BR>Hypothesis IIIB: Youth who don't commit delinquency have “Affirmative” self-conception to a high degree. The subjects were students who live in an institution Specialized in delinquency (the remedial treatment group, N=25) in a general junior high school where records of delinquency and official guidance within a year period were confirmed by teachers (the delinquency group, N=11) and those with no delinquency behavior were ascertained by teachers within the one-year period (the normal group, N=11).<BR>The main results were as follows.<BR>Among the hypotheses concerning the 3 groups, the hypotheses IA, IB, HA, IIA', IIB, IIIB were supported by variance analysis (the “main effect” and the “direction of level”) of Q-sort data obtained in each 3 groups.<BR>Also results of (the “main effect of the factor” and the “direction of the level”) individual variance analysis, considering the intermediate calculations, tended to support the results of each group variance analysis, in that each individual numeric configuration had tendency to conform to the results (the “direction of the level”) of each group variance analysis, except the “main effect” of “Social self” and the “direction of that level” seen in the group of institutionalized delinquents.<BR>The factor analysis (Principal factor method) performed on the 47 × 47 matrix produced the 1st factor related to the “Social direction”,“one of the levels” of “Social self” ; 2 nd factor was considered to be related to the “Anti-social direction” of “Social self”.<BR>The results of variance analysis of the factor array were taken into consideration in the above interpretation.<BR>Moreover these results were considered to support the above mentioned results of variance analysis.