Sex roles and self-esteem : a critical analysis of constructs

Includes bibliographical references (pages 42-48)In order to determine which sex role orientation is\ud most related to high self-ratings of self-esteem,\ud masculinity (as some researchers have found) or androgyny\ud (as some other researchers have found), 259 (111 men and\ud 148 women) introductory psychology students from\ud California State University, Northridge completed the\ud Personal Attributes Questionnaire, the Self-Rating Scale,\ud and the Marlowe-Crowne Scale. Subjects were categorized\ud as belonging in one of four sex role subgroups (androgynous,\ud instrumental, expressive, or undifferentiated)\ud using the currently popular median-split procedure.\ud The labels ("masculinity" and "femininity") were\ud replaced by the terms "instrumentality" and "expressiveness"\ud because the Personal Attributes Questionnaire\ud is, to a large extent a measure of instrumental and\ud expressive traits. It was felt that using the labels\ud instrumental and expressive would help circumvent some\ud misleading interpretations and value judgments, caused by\ud the use of the labels ???masculine??? and ???feminine.???\ud The central theme of this thesis is that self-esteem\ud is strongly related to instrumentality but not to\ud expressiveness. In accordance with this hypothesis, the\ud relationship between sex role orientation and the five\ud subscales of self-esteem (derived from a previous factor\ud analysis of the Self-Rating Scale) was assessed.\ud A multivariate analysis of variance was performed for\ud the five self-esteem subscales. All comparisons were\ud translated into one degree of freedom preplanned contrasts.\ud Compared were the average of the two higher\ud instrumental means (instrumental + androgynous) with the\ud average of the two lower instrumental means (expressive +\ud undifferentiated), where the higher instrumental means\ud were predicted to have higher self-esteem: for the two\ud higher instrumental means (androgynous- instrumental), no\ud directional prediction was made: nor was a directional\ud prediction made for the two lower instrumental means\ud (expressive- undifferentiated). Results were in\ud accordance with the prediction of higher self-esteem for\ud the two higher instrumental means. There was also a\ud significant, though not large, multivariate effect for\ud sex, with males scoring higher in self-esteem: there were\ud no significant sex by sex role interactions.\ud Partial correlations between self-esteem and sex\ud roles were calculated showing no major influence of social\ud desirability. Furthermore, instrumentality was found to\ud have a much larger correlation with the self-esteem scales\ud than expressiveness.\ud Regression within each sex was employed as an\ud alternative model for continuous sex role variables. These\ud results were also interpreted as supporting the proposed\ud model: instrumentality was found to be a major predictor\ud of self-esteem while expressiveness and an interaction\ud term added very little to the predictable variation. (See more in text