First Advisor

Frank Wesley

Term of Graduation

Fall 1983

Date of Publication

11-22-1983

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.) in Psychology

Department

Psychology

Language

English

Subjects

Femininity, Self-esteem, Women in the professions -- United States

DOI

10.15760/etd.3245

Physical Description

1 online resource (3, 37 pages)

Abstract

Research in sex-roles has found masculinity and androgyny to be correlated with self-esteem while femininity has a low or negative correlation with self-esteem. Much of the research in this area is based in studies of androgyny. Androgyny is the ability to respond in a feminine or masculine manner, depending on the situation rather than being limited to only feminine or masculine behavior because of sex-role stereotypes. In the research on self-esteem some studies have reported androgynous individuals measure high in self-esteem. Other studies have found that masculine characteristics contribute more to the self-esteem than androgynous characteristics. These results, taken together, suggest people with androgynous and masculine characteristics have high self-esteem while those with feminine characteristics have lowered or negative self-esteem.

All of the studies examining the correlation between femininity and self-esteem except one have used college women as subjects. None of the studies have investigated professional women. This study addresses the issue of self-esteem in professional women to determine if employment at a professional level affects the correlation of low and negative self-esteem that has been consistently found in college women. The hypothesis tested was that there would be a higher correlation between femininity and self-esteem than that found in college women in previous studies. For comparison a group of women students were also studied.

Rights

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Comments

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Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/18696

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