Abstract
Ideas discussed in R. E. Hartley’s essay published in the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly in 1960 were reconsidered in a study of the associations between measures of gender role identity and self-perceptions of well-being in two samples (Ns = 710 and 325) of older school-age participants from lower middle-class and upper middle-class neighborhoods in Montreal, Canada, and Barranquilla, Colombia. One sample was collected in 2002; the other, in 2017. The central concern of Hartley’s essay was the consequence of historical changes in adherence to traditional gender role prescriptions. The current study participants rated items adapted from the Bem Sex Role Inventory to measure sensitivity/femininity and assertiveness/masculinity and completed a measure of self-perceived social competence and general self-worth. Two critical findings were observed. First, there was a time-related increase in sensitivity/femininity for upper middle-class participants from Montreal and a time-related decrease in assertiveness/masculinity for lower middle-class participants. Second, in both samples, the mean scores on the two measures of well-being were higher for children who were identified as androgynous than for children who were sex-typed. These findings replicate previous results and confirm Hartley’s observations described in the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly seven decades ago.
Suggested Reviewers
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Recommended Citation
Bukowski, William M.; Lopez, Lina Maria; Commisso, Melissa; DeLay, Dawn; and Lopez, Luz Stella
(2024)
"Historical and Contextual Variations in the Association Between Gender Role Adherence and Well-Being: Revisiting an Early Essay From the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly,"
Merrill-Palmer Quarterly: A Peer Relations Journal: Vol. 70:
Iss.
2, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/mpq/vol70/iss2/3
