Measurement of Family Image

―Comparison between Japanese and Korean Students―

Abstract

　This study compared the family image between Japanese and Korean students using the semantic differential (SD) technique. Eight concepts ("mother," "father," "child," "home," "work," "man," "woman," and "me") were measured for analysis of the meanings.

　To determine the SD scale, two questionnaries were first carried out. In the questionnaire 1, 75 subjects selected adjectives to describe each concept from a list of 192 adjectives. As a result, 65 scales were selected on the basis of the frequency of adjective selection. In the questionnaire 2, the 8 concepts were evaluated on the 65 scales with the SD method. As a result of the factor analyzing data from 82 Japanese students, three major factors were extracted. These were named affective evaluation, social evaluation, and activity, respectively. For the questionnaire 3 in which the family image was compared between Japanese and Korean students with the SD method, 23 scales were selected on the basis of factor loadings of the three factors. As a result of factor analysis of SD data from Japanese and Korean students, the same three factors were extracted. Therefore, the semantic structure of the 8 concepts in both groups consists of three dimensions: affective evaluation, social evaluation, and activity, and the relationship among the concepts were considered from factor scores and D scores.

　The affective evaluation of the concepts, "mother," "child," "home," and "woman," was positively higher than "father," "work," and "man" in the two groups. In this evaluative dimension, the self concept "me" was relatively evaluated as low as "father" and "man". Therefore, it seems that students in both groups identify themselves with father and man rather than mother and woman. The concept "child" was evaluated negatively in the social evaluative dimension, and represented extremely high activity. Korean students rated the social evaluation of 7 concepts except for the concept "work" significantly higher than did Japanese students. Mother and father were given higher social evaluation than woman and man as person concepts in both groups.

　The closest semantic relationship was found between mother and home from the D score, and also the D scores between father and work, and man and work were low to indicate a relatively closer semantic distance.