Ideal persons of CPU freshmen

Abstract

Psychologists of adolescence maintain that adolescence is the period when the ego-ideal forms most fully and when it exerts the greatest influence. Lawrence and Mary Frank summarize the various statements of psychologists on Identification and <em>ego-ideal</em> thus, “ A person takes over and incorporates in his own conduct the patterns of the person whom he wishes to be like.”

The CPU freshmen were asked to complete, the statement: "Of all the persons I have known, have heard or read about (living or not living, real or fiction) the person I consider "ideal” or the person I would most want to be like (If the person is not widely known, tell who he or she is (was) or how he/she is related to you.) The use of this completion-type item was based on the belief that when one thinks of what one would like to be or of what one ought to be, there is probably a pattern of impulses, even though faint and fleeting, toward action in the direction of realizing that ideal in one's own personality. The survey of "ideal persons" was intended to discover what kinds of model CPU freshmen tended to pattern their behavior after.