Adolescent Physical Self And Its Relationship With The Self-esteem

Physical self is self-perception and statement of one's body, which represents the initial part ofthe self-conscious and acts as a base and important role in self-concept. In the last two decades,there have been important developments in this field especially on models and instruments.Compared with those researches in abroad our study appears quite weak. The purpose of this studywas to development Adolescent Physical Self Questionnaire and explores the characteristics ofadolescent physical self. In addition, the hypothesized relationship between physical self andself-worth, which devised by Fox was discussed by using of Self-Worth Scale.Open-ended questionnaire responses were used to identify important contributors to thephysical self. Together with experts' opinion and research works in this field, a preliminaryquestionnaire was developed. After deleting some items according to psychometric properti~s,exploratory factor analysis indicated the dimensions of physical self. 1142 students were involvedin this research, the result are as follows:The self-made questionnaire has good reliability and validity. Seven dimensions wereidentified through factor analysis: Appearance, sports competence. sex, negative character, health,figure, and eyesight.The most emphasized physical indexes by adolescence are health, height, eyesight, figure,resistance and eyes in order. There were no significant effects on gender and grade cohort generally,however the degrees adolescence emphasized on concrete physical indexes declined while complexindexes increased from grade I in middle school to grade 4 in collage. For adolescent responses, theinteresting on sexual functions also increased with grade.There was no statistically significant gender difference on global physical self in adolescents inChina. Male have higher score on sports competence and sex character.There was a U-shaped effect on grade. Physical self declined during preadolescence through tograde 2 in high school, leveled out, and then increased.Physical self was an important source to self-worth. Zero-order correlation, partial correlationprovided results consistent with the hierarchical structure which suggested by Fox R. K.. In additiQn,the data showed that physical self has more influence on female, whose self-worth decided more bythe value an individual attaches to her body.