Sense of personal worth, self-esteem, and anomia of child-abusing mothers and controls

Matched a group of 14 abusing mothers with an equal number of control mothers on race, educational level, income, and marital status. Their scores were compared on three personality scales, the Sense of Personal Worth Scale of the California Test of Personality, the Srole Anomia scale, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale. A significant difference (p < .05) was found between the groups on the Sense of Personal Worth scale; control mothers reported stronger feelings of personal worth based on their perceptions of others' evaluations of them. The difference between the groups approached significance (p < .07) on the Anomia scale, with abusing mothers scoring higher on feelings of social alienation. On the Self-Esteem scale, which indicates personal feelings of worth independent of the evaluations of others, no significant differences were found between groups. Correlation coefficients also were computed among scores obtained by the abusing mothers on the personality scales. Implications of these findings related to child welfare work with abusing mothers are discussed.