Sex Roles

, Volume 25, Issue 3–4, pp 129–139 | Cite as

Sex role identity and self-esteem: A comparison of children and adolescents

  • Betty Allgood-Merten
  • Jean Stockard
Article

Abstract

While data from a sample of fourth-grade children indicate that both self-efficacy (masculinity) and relationality (femininity) are strongly associated with self-esteem for both girls and boys, results from a comparable sample of adolescents aged 14–18 and a subsample of the fourth graders when they were in twelfth grade indicate that only self-efficacy is generally associated with self-esteem. An association between relationality and self-esteem is found in adolescents only for a small, high-achieving, high-SES subset of “androgynous” males.

Keywords

Social Psychology Fourth Grader Comparable Sample Role Identity Twelfth Grade 
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Copyright information

© Plenum Publishing Corporation 1991

Authors and Affiliations

  • Betty Allgood-Merten
    • 1
  • Jean Stockard
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of SociologyUniversity of OregonEugene

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