Gender and self-esteem: A meta-analysis.

Abstract

ne of the many questions explored by Janet Taylor Spence and 0 her colleagues concerns the relationships among gender, selfesteem, and so-called "masculine" agentic personality characteristics and "feminine" communal personality characteristics. In what has been considered a surprising finding, Spence's research indicates that the same relationships are typically observed in both men and women: Possession of masculine attributes is substantially and positively correlated with self-esteem, whereas possession of feminine attributes tends to have a minimal relationship with self-esteem (e.g., Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1975). One implication of this finding is that men might be higher than women in global self-esteem by virtue of their superiority in masculine attributes. Yet, despite thousands of articles related to gender and self-esteem that have appeared in the scholarly journals, no one has yet to offer a definitive answer to the seemingly simple question, Are men and women different in global self-esteem?Global self-esteem is widely regarded by many psychologists as one of the most important determinants of personal well-being and ad-Preparation of this chapter was supported by National Science Foundation Grant SBR-9596226.

How Low Will Men with High Self-Esteem Go? Self-Esteem as a Moderator of Gender Differences in Minimum Relationship Standards

“…Previous research has found modest gender differences in self-esteem levels such that men often report slightly higher levels of global self-esteem (Kling et al 1999;Major et al 1999;Twenge and Campbell 2001) and certain domain-specific self-evaluations than women (e.g., appearance; Gentile et al 2009). For the present study, however, gender differences did not emerge for self-esteem (M Men =3.94, M Women =3.99; t[179]=.46, ns).…”

Stalking the perfect measure of implicit self-esteem: The blind men and the elephant revisited?

“…Finally, for exploratory purposes, we related implicit selfesteem to a number of variables that have been shown to relate to explicit self-esteem such as gender (Major, Barr, Zubek, & Babey, 1999), mood (e.g., Dua, 1993;Tarlow & Haaga, 1996), academic achievement (Khalid, 1990;Newbegin & Owens, 1996), and physical health (e.g., Antonucci & Jackson, 1983;Carroll & Buhrow, 1994;O'Connor & Vallerand, 1998;Vingilis, Wade, & Adlaf, 1998). We also related implicit self-esteem to participants' use of the word /, which is thought to indicate self-focused attention (e.g., Kernis, Grannemann, Richie, & Hart, 1988;Mullen, Chapman, & Peaugh, 1989;Wegner & Giuliano, 1980).…”

Single-Sex Education: New Perspectives and Evidence on a Continuing Controversy

“…These reports and books focused on gender-related classroom and school inequities and girls' supposed loss of self-esteem during adolescence. Despite findings from two meta-analyses shortly thereafter that self-esteem gender differences were relatively small and dependent upon ethnicity (Kling et al 1999;Major et al 1999), many female political leaders and social commentators, including feminists who had attended women's colleges, came to view girls' schools as safe havens from the sexism of coeducational classrooms. That is, the exclusion of boys from classrooms was viewed as an effective and acceptable means of promoting gender equality by improving girls' academic achievement and mental health (Weil 2008).…”