| Description |
Eighty-eight freshman male students living in residence halls at the University of Utah were employed as subjects in this study. Measures of personalization were taken from the wall decorations of their rooms during the second and final weeks of Autumn quarter, 1973. These measures were of the space occupied by objects that represented subjects' personal relationships, values, abstract decoration, reference objects, entertainment objects, and personal interest and, in addition, the total gross space that was decorated. These measures were correlated with grade point average and withdrawal rate. Measures were also taken of change in wall decoration over time, roommate modeling of one another and sharing of space by bunking beds and adding extra furniture and appliances. The hypothesis that forms of personalization emerge slowly over time was generally confirmed, while the hypothesis that personalization; served as a predictor of scholastic performance and withdrawal was not confirmed. |
