Abstract
General measures of self-esteem have often been unsuccessful in predicting specific behaviors or self-reports, particularly those of female subjects. To explore this problem, this study examined the relationship between a general measure of self-esteem and specific measures of agentic and communal self-esteem in a sample of 79 female and 97 male undergraduates. Three agentic measures were found to account for a greater proportion of the variance in general self-esteem scores of males (51%) than of females (33%). This difference was accentuated when traditionally sex-typed subjects were compared separately; the percentages for these groups were 45% for masculine males and 14% for feminine females. Differences between male and female subjects regarding the communal measure were small and nonsignificant. Implications for sex typing and the measurement of self-esteem are considered.
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Stake, J.E., Orlofsky, J.L. On the use of global and specific measures in assessing the self-esteem of males and females. Sex Roles 7, 653–662 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00291753
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00291753