The Japanese Journal of Criminal Psychology

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The main purpose of this study was to examine the juvenile delinquents’ cognition of their family and to analyze the relation between their cognition and their parent’s rearing attitude. Two types of questionnaires were used. One was to examine the attributes of subjects. The other was to examine their cognition of family by Semantic Differential Method(SD), The subjects were 2,132 juvenile delinquents taken in the Juvenile Classification Homes. The data obtained by the latter questionnaire were analyzed by factor analysis. We got three factors (Factor-1 was “evaluation”, Factor-2 was “activity”, Factor-3 was “potency”).

Subsequently, we computed factor scores and we converted these factor score into DISTANT SCORE(DS). The main findings were as follows;(1) DS between subjects and the father(FDS) and DS between subjects and the mother(MDS) were higher than DS between subjects and brothers and sisters(BDS). (2) According to the comparison among three age-groups(low age-group, middle age-group, high age-group), we didn’t find any consistent tendencies on DS and there was no different tendency between male and female. (3) According to the comparison in father’s rearing attitude, DS of male subjects was not much influenced by rearing attitude. However DS of female subjects was considerably influenced. In case of “rejection” (father’s attitude), FDS and MDS were higher than those of other types of attitude. And in case of “no-consistent”, BDS was higher than that of other types of attitude. (4) According to the comparison in mother’s rearing attitude, DS of male subjects was influenced. In case of “noninterference”, MDS was higher than that of other types of attitude. DS of female subjects was also influenced. In case of “rejection”, FDS was higher. In case of “noninterference”, MDS was higher.

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