We Are Born and We Die. but What Happens In-between? a Study of the Physical Concept of Males and Females across the Age Span

The most fundamental truth in life is that we carry that life in a capsule we refer to as the body. We cannot escape the fact that often, just like a fluid, the shape of that life is influenced by the shape of the container. The role of the physical self-concept in the lives of individuals is central and inescapable but there is a paucity of reliable psychological instruments for the measuring of physical self concept, especially instruments designed to remain stable by gender and age right across the span of life. The Richards Physical Self-Concept Scale was designed for this purpose and has now been used to evaluate the Physical Self-Concept of thousands of Australians from childhood through to old age. This major large sample study has been able to track the overall changes in physical self-concept at different ages and according to gender. Using various forms of evaluation on the instrument itself it has proven stable and reliable and of consistent factorial structure so that the normative results can be interpreted with confidence. This study will report on both the structure and psychometric properties of the Richards Physical Self-Concept Scale and also the results of this large cross-sectional study of males and females across the age span.