Self-concepts of Persian college students living in the United States : relations to gender and sex-role identification

Includes bibliographical references (pages 28-30)Self-concept is assumed to be an important aspect of each individual's\ud personality. In minority groups a positive self-concept is thought\ud ???to be related to the degree of integration into the dominant society.\ud At the same time it is also important for the individual's self-concept\ud to maintain a positive identity with one's own subculture.\ud It was predicted that Persians within the American culture would have\ud difficulty in integration and assimilation, and therefore the self-concept\ud of Persians would be lower than that of their American counterparts.\ud The sex roles literature is divided in that some studies\ud report that androgynous people are higher in self-concept than sex-typed\ud individuals or those that are undifferentiated with respect to\ud sex-role typology. Other researchers claim that higher masculinity\ud in both sexes leads to higher self-concept. Current research tends \ud to favor the latter interpretation. It was predicted that Persian\ud college students would have lower self-concept than a comparison\ud group of American students based on lack of assimilation. Because\ud of greater anticipated role conflicts it was also predicted that\ud Bern's theory would hold for the Persian women, that is, androgynous\ud women would be higher in self-esteem than other sex-role types.\ud Two studies were performed on the Persian and American\ud students using the Personal Attribute Questionnaire (PAQ) and the\ud Personal and Academic Self-concept Inventory (PASCI). In the first\ud study sex and culture were the independent variables and the dependent\ud variables were masculinity and femininity. There was no main\ud effect for sex or culture nor was there an interaction between sex\ud and culture on the masculinity scale. On the femininity scale,\ud however, there was a significant main effect for sex, with females\ud scoring higher on femininity. Persian men were as high as Persian\ud and American females on the femininity scale, but American men were\ud lower than these groups. In the second study, the independent variables\ud were sex, culture, masculinity and femininity, with self-esteem\ud as the dependent variable. Males scored higher on physical ability.\ud Males also reported less social anxiety. There was a main effect of\ud culture on physical appearance and physical ability. Persians scored\ud significantly higher on physical appearance and significantly lower\ud on physical ability. There was significant difference on the masculinity\ud scale: Those higher in masculinity were higher on self-regard\ud and lower on social anxiety. On general self-concept and the remaining\ud scales, Persians equaled their American counterparts.\ud It was found that although the majority of Persians identified\ud with the Persian culture, nonetheless it was apparent that they had\ud adjusted well, even though not assimilated into the American culture.\ud However, Persians and Americans were equal in most aspects of self-regard,\ud contrary to the literature