Abstract
The objective of this study was to create a measure to evaluate the roles of an adolescent child in a family as perceived by oneself and to examine the relationship between the role the child plays and the family function. Special attention was paid to two aspects of the roles, the role expectation and the role behavior. A questionnaire survey was given to 429 college students. As a result, a role measure was created consisting of two factors, Parental Role and Child's Role. After examining its internal consistency and validity, they were confirmed to be sufficient. Furthermore, as the result of comparing the scores of role expectation and role behavior for both the parental role and the child's role, no significant difference was observed between expectation and behavior in the parental role. However, significant differences were observed in the child's role. Moreover, it was shown that in both the parental, role and the child's role, when the role behavior is not fulfilled as expected, the family function becomes impaired.
