Abstract
This study was undertaken to assess the nature of the relationship of parental strictness to competitive and cooperative attitudes of primary school children as measured by Minnesota School Affect Assessment. On the competitive items 109 boys did not score significantly higher than 119 girls but the girls scored higher than the boys on the cooperative items. Girls perceived their parents as being more strict than boys. For boys a significant correlation was found between parental strictness items and competitiveness, whereas for girls both competitiveness and cooperativeness showed significant correlation with parental strictness. The children apparently expressed attitudes about their parents that were strongly correlated to their sex differences in attitudes. More cross-cultural research on specific child-rearing variables is recommended using valid and reliable measures such as the Minnesota School Affect Assessment.