CHAPTER 1
Conceptualizing gender in personality theory and research
Abigail J. Stewart and Brinton Lakes
This volume is based on a special issue of the Journal of Personality devoted to the question of how "gender" is, and (especially) should be, conceptualized in personality theory and research. It was designed for students and researchers. The idea for the issue grew out of our conviction that "gender" has played a curious and paradoxical role in personality theory and research to date. First, gender has been widely assumed to have an important role in personality. Indeed, according to some theories, an individual's gender provides a major "organizing principle" for personality development (Freud, 1905/1953, 1933/1964; Jung, 1926). Nevertheless, despite fairly elaborate conceptualizations, most aspects of these theories have not been submitted to empirical examination (Fisher & Greenberg, 1977; Flowerman, 1954). At the same time personality researchers have tended, like the theorists, to assume that "gender" (or biological sex) is an important "variable" and have routinely examined empirical differences between the sexes (Harris, 1972) in the absence of clearly articulated conceptualizations of the possible or real meaning of biological sex, or gender roles, for the phenomenon under study. The inevitable yield of these entirely separate endeavors is elegant theory with no grounding in data and an ever-growing but uninterpretable account of discovered differences—and nondifferences— between the sexes (Block, 1976).
The landscape of research and theory on gender and personality has also been substantially changed by theoretical and methodological developments within personality research (e.g., idiographic vs. nomethetic approach to personality research, qualitative vs. quantitative research methods) and by the impact of the women's liberation movement on research and theory about women. Within this latter context, psychologists concerned with women have developed theory and research that seek to correct many of the biases of traditional personality theory rooted in an analysis of the experiences of white, middleclass, college-educated males (Grady, 1981; Reardon & Prescott, 1977). Parlee (1975, 1979) and Henley (1974) enumerated several of the perspectives generated by psychologists concerned about women in their discussion of psychology of, against, and for women. Minimally, work that is "of" or "for" women requires that the researcher take women's experience as a serious starting point for the research endeavor, not as "noise" to be controlled. More basically, this critique has led to the reformulation of existing theories (e.g., Gilligan's 1982 theory of women's morality based on Responsibility, in contrast to men's morality based on rights) and to the development of new theory (e.g., Miller's 1984 development of a theory of women's sense of "Self-in-relation"). Parallel developments have emerged in the area of methodology (see, for example, Roberts, 1981). Each of these strategies has generated research and theory that have served as counterpoint to more traditional theorizing about males and females (see, e.g., Chodorow, 1978; Gilligan, 1982; Lewis, 1976) and generated entirely new questions for psychological research (see, e.g., Bern, 1974, on Androgyny; Homey, 1972, on Fear of success; Wolman & Frank, 1975, on token women).
Our goal in this text was to provide an opportunity for students, researchers, and theorists to consider the ways in which biological sex and social roles, social statuses, and life experiences linked to gender should be conceptualized in personality theory and research. Our aim was to encourage work that brought together: (a) those notions from classical and recent personality theories that are useful, (b) those findings from personality research that have implications for assessing the utility of theoretical concepts, and (c) those empirical explorations that give rise to entirely new conceptualizations of the meaning of gender for our work. The work presented here is both grounded in classical and recent personality theory and research and informed by the growing body of feminist theory in psychology. The papers do indeed challenge the adequacy of traditional theory, demonstrate the meaninglessness of piling up ad hoc findings, and point to several—sometimes divergent—approaches to conceptualizing gender in personality theory and research.
Moreover, these papers reflect a diversity of procedures and approaches quite different from the methodological narrowness of psychologists' usual practice. This diversity reflects our conviction that the challenge of conceptualizing gender in personality theory and research demands methods that go beyond experimental paradigms. Personality researchers (see, e.g., Carlson, 1985; Runyan, 1982) and feminist theorists (see, e.g., Eichler, 1980; Stanley & Wise, 1983) have critically evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the experimental paradigm in the development of knowledge about women and men. Although no clear consensus about what constitutes "feminist" methodology has emerged from the critique of traditional methods and the debate this criticism has generated (Reinharz, 1983), the discussion has fostered among many researchers (Lott, 1985) greater flexibility in approaches to studying women's and men's lives.
Despite the emergence of a body of critical theorizing about the limitations of the traditional experimental method (see, e.g., Buss, 1979; McKenna & Kessler, 1977; Manicas & Secord, 1983; Sampson, 1978; Unger, 1983) and growing consensus among psychologists that this reflects only one among many approaches to understanding, for example, gender and personality issues, the vast majority of published research in the field relies on this method (see, e.g., Lykes & Stewart, 1983). The papers in this volume depart from the usual practice in personality research and thus represent a broad range of procedures and approaches.
Methods of data collection reflected in the papers include conventional personality batteries, projective tests, interviews, and open-ended responses to written questions; and the subjects of research range in age from children through late middle-aged adults and include other than middle-class, college-educated people. Data are analyzed using content analysis of written and oral responses, factor analysis of quantitative and qualitative scores, and secondary analysis of existing data. Evidence for and against theoretical propositions is evaluated in terms of aggregate data as well as individual cases. The only major technique not represented is the traditional experimental method, in which subjects are asked to participate in an experimenter- defined and experimenter-controlled procedure.
Despite this diversity of approaches all of the researchers represented share one methodological commitment. They all try to use methods that allow the subjects of their research to respond in terms of personally meaningful experiences and issues.
While the articles in this volume vary in their dependence on either formal feminist theory or the critique of traditional personality theory, all of them share some elements of both. Each author has engaged these issues at a point unique to her or his experience and expertise. All of the work is informed by a generation of theorists and researchers about women who have sought new ways of conceptualizing age-old experiences. The research and theorizing presented here should therefore be examined in the context of this developing agenda for personality psychologists concerned with the study of gender. The volume includes both assessments of the current state of research and theory in several areas of personality research and proposed directions for future work. Each paper in this book clearly represents a unique and independent contribution and will provide direction and stimulation to particular inquiries within the field of personality. Taken as a group they provide some synthesis and direction for conceptualizing gender in personality theory and research; moreover, a number of common themes clearly emerge.
Substantive Themes
Several insights and concerns, with significant consequences for personality, recur in many of the papers: the role of relationships and relatedness in personality development; the significance of power and status; and the role of concrete, particular life experiences. These three themes (with variations) emerge most often in combination with recognition of two additional discoveries: that an understanding of "individuation"—at the core of many classical theories (e.g., Freud and Jung)—is inadequate to encompass personality development; and that sex differences are actually rather unimportant in the study of personality.
The Relative Unimportance of Sex as an Explanatory Variable
In areas as different as the domains of reported achievement successes, power motives and behaviors, and moral development, sex differences per se were found to play a very small role in other published research and in data reported here. In addition, sex-role identity also played a relatively small part. Even in areas with somewhat more consistent evidence for sex differences (e.g., women's greater sociability and emotional expressiveness; see the papers by Lewis, Lykes, and Brody), sex differences were smaller and more context-dependent than traditional notions would suggest.
The Inadequacy of "Individuation" as a Definition for Personality Development
Though most of the authors concede that individuation, or definition of a separate "self," is one element of personality development, many identified this conceptualization as exaggerated in contemporary understanding of personality. Thus, Lykes argues that "autonomous individualism" is only one form of self-definition, and Helson, Mitchell, and Hart find that some women's processes of self-definition within relationships cannot be understood using most existing personality theories. Similarly, Franz and White argue that the apparent sexism in Erikson's theory lies less in overvaluation of male personality than in an overvaluation of individuation.
The Importance of Connection and Relatedness for Personality Development
Most of the papers identify the experience of relationships, and the need to be connected to others, as important elements in personality. Most broadly, Franz and White argue that the development of a mature capacity for relationship is a process parallel to, and equal with, the development of the capacity for a separate, autonomous identity. Lykes argues in a different vein that alternative understandings of the self derive from different experiences of the self in relationship with others. Thus, a central element of self-definition is the particular relationships one has experienced. Lewis proposes both that sociability is a human universal and that women are (innately) slightly more disposed than are men to form and care about relationships. She argues that this bias in sociability then results in differential personality development and hence differential vulnerability to depression and paranoia.
Even in those papers less centrally concerned with this issue, the importance of relationships is discussed. Most often, the writings of Gilligan (1982), Chodorow (1978), and Miller (1976, 1984) are drawn upon to provide some theoretical context for understanding the consequences of relationships for personality (see, e.g., Helson, Mitchell, & Hart; Winter & Barenbaum; and Brody). In addition, some more traditional concepts—e.g., agency and communion (see Gaeddert) and the instrumental-expressive distinction (see Winter & Barenbaum)—are employed. In any case, the significance of relationships as a fundamental need, as well as a context for personality development, is a critical theme throughout these papers.
An important priority implied by the diversity of the ways in which this theme emerges, though, is even more precision and detail about the different meanings of relationship and the different forms of relating. Thus, Franz and White distinguish between abstract relationships to institutions and concrete interpersonal relations, while Lykes suggests that concrete interpersonal relations are importantly affected by larger institutional and social structural connections. Lewis proposes that there is an innate bias toward sociability in females. Brody suggests that social connectedness may have a different adaptive function where women have lower status; and Walker and Browne suggest that some women may overvalue relationships to the point of jeopardizing their own safety. The different understandings of relationships and relatedness implied by these different writers need to be developed; we need to better understand precisely how these notions are in conflict and convergence and to avoid prematurely collapsing these separate understandings into one another.
The Significance of Power and Status
Several of the papers attempt to incorporate women's lower status and lesser social power into the analysis of gender and personality. Thus, we see authors giving conscious attention to the power and status difference between women and men—a difference nearly always confounded with biological sex. Brody; Helson, Mitchell, and Hart; Lykes; Walker and Browne; and Winter and Barenbaum all argue that some observed personality differences between the sexes can be seen to flow directly from the different power resources and statuses of the sexes. This logic leads several researchers to argue that intrasex differences in status and experience should result in similar kinds of personality differences as those found between the sexes. In this way the significance of the structural relations between the sexes can be indirectly demonstrated.
Moreover, Winter and Barenbaum in their paper and Morawski argue that professional interpretations of sex differences are profoundly influenced by the ideological climate in which psychologists make them. These authors point out the distortions and collective misconceptions that result from professional norms and practices that reflect and reproduce power relations in the wider society. Thus, both papers suggest that psychology as a discipline must be more self-conscious about its past—and its present—capacity to hold inaccurate, unjustified views, and to ignore the data, when those views fit in with prevailing doctrines and justify the status quo. Morawski in particular shows how rapidly and enthusiastically psychologists can be recruited to ideas that lack "real" significance and violate common sense, if only they serve psychologists' need to defend and promote their professional interest. The self-reflective approach to psychological theory-building presented by Morawski provides an important strategy for correcting the tendency to recapitulate past errors in our development of new theory.
The Role of Concrete Life Experience
Nearly every paper in this volume argues for the importance of grounding our research and theory in concrete life experience. Morawski argues that we have often been led to ignore—or actively mistrust—the concrete, and at peril to our ideas. From a different angle Brody argues that few findings are so trans-situational or acontextual that we can afford to be so sublimely indifferent as we have been to the particularities out of which findings arise. Gaeddert and Lifton argue that subjects must be asked to engage in activities that grow out of their own life experiences. And Lykes, Walker and Browne, and Winter and Barenbaum all show that particular life experiences result in different personality outcomes. Thus, again, we see the power of exploring within the sexes the meaning of experiences that may differentiate the sexes on the average. Finally, both Lykes and (especially) Helson, Mitchell, and Hart examine personality issues in terms of individual lives—the clearest form of grounding the theoretical in the particular.
Organization of the Book
We believe that each of the papers in the volume makes a broad and individual contribution to the question of how to conceptualize gender and personality, and each deserves to be examined in its own terms, as well as in relation to the other papers. We note that nearly all of the papers depart at least somewhat from the traditional formats or models in "scientific writing." Few of them can be classified as theory or research—conceptual or empirical. Most of the papers include elements of review or analysis of data and development of theory. This derives in part, of course, from our goals in the volume. We believe the integration of theory and research in these papers reflects not only our encouragement to authors, but also our authors' appreciation of the need to shift from models of science as "theory-testing" or "fact-finding" to a more dialectical, reflexive model of theory development in which discovery and description have an important and valued place in defining and developing understanding.
