Analysis of Emotional Indicators in Human Figure Drawings as Related to Self-Esteem

2 groups of 10- through 13-yr.-old children were separated for high and low self-esteem, and given a human figure-drawing task. Figures drawn were Man, Woman, Self, and Eskimo. Subsequently, the drawings were scored on six emotional indicators such as body height and width, area, erasures, transpare...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Perceptual and Motor Skills
Main Authors: Prytula, Robert E., Thompson, Nancy Dunn
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 1973
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/003151257303700326
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003151257303700326
Description
Summary:2 groups of 10- through 13-yr.-old children were separated for high and low self-esteem, and given a human figure-drawing task. Figures drawn were Man, Woman, Self, and Eskimo. Subsequently, the drawings were scored on six emotional indicators such as body height and width, area, erasures, transparencies, and omissions. The results do not offer consistent support for the body-image hypothesis as related to self-esteem. Ss did not differ in terms of drawn size of Self figure, nor did Ss high in self-esteem draw significantly larger figures across all drawings as compared with those low in self-esteem. Although the latter drew significantly more transparencies, no other conflict indicators were significant in comparing groups of Ss low and high in esteem.