THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEVELS OF OBJECT REPRESENTATION AND GENDER ROLE IDENTITY IN A NORMAL POPULATION (DREAMS, KROHN SCALE)
Abstract
The results of recent investigations have suggested an association between the intrapsychic processes of object representation and interpersonal maturity. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationships between the dependent variable of object representation and the three independent variables of age, sex, and gender role identity (GRI), i.e., masculinity, femininity, high androgynous, and low androgynous. Considering the developmental nature of the object-representation concept, the results of empirical investigations suggesting the greater adaptibility of an androgynous personality style, and a socialization process that teaches females to "relate" and males to "do," it was expected that a functional relationship between levels of object representation and GRI would be obtained. Specifically, it was hypothesized that high androgynous subjects would obtain the highest level of object representation, followed in descending order by feminine, masculine, and low androgynous subjects. Moreover, if levels of object representation could distinguish between GRI regardless of biological sex, some information concerning the relative contributions of nature and nurture to various behavioral phenomena may have been provided. It was also hypothesized that levels of object representation would increase with increasing age and that females would obtain a higher level of object representation than males. Sixty male and sixty female subjects were equally divided into the four GRI classifications according to their self-reports on the Personal Attributes Questionaire. The object-representation concept was quantified by applying the Krohn scale to the manifest dream content of each subject. While the hypotheses concerning a functional relationship between object representation and GRI, and between object representation and age, were not supported by the data, a sex difference was found. Females obtained a higher level of object representation than males. It was suggested that the androgyny concept may be of limited utility, that the socialization process that treats males and females differently has a utility that may have been overlooked in the search for the ideal personality, and that this utility may have to be taken into consideration in any attempt to gain a better understanding of what it is to be psychologically mature in our society.
Subject Area
Psychology
Recommended Citation
PALMIERI, RUDOLPH, "THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEVELS OF OBJECT REPRESENTATION AND GENDER ROLE IDENTITY IN A NORMAL POPULATION (DREAMS, KROHN SCALE)" (1985). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI8521395.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI8521395
