Effective gender research requires a revision of the meaning of the current notions of agency (masculinity) and communion (femininity), as well as a close examination of the impact of these constructs on well-being outcomes. Based on V. S. Helgeson's (1994) model of sex, agency, communion, and well-being, two studies were conducted to (1) examine the concepts of agency and communion in a multidimensional manner; (2) assess and review the association between agency and mental health through the inclusion of peer reports and a relevant meta-analysis; (3) explore the association between agency and social adjustment, including two pertinent meta-analyses; and (4) empirically assess conceptual parallels among the constructs of agency and communion with the following personality-related constructs: Masculine and feminine traits, agentic and communal behaviors, power and intimacy motivation, and self-critical and dependent depressive styles, as well as their association with well-being outcomes. Findings reveal a positive association between agency and social adjustment, suggest a possible tendency to inflate levels of psychological adjustment in agentic individuals, and highlight the need to revise the concepts of agency and communion as encompassing multiple as opposed to uniform dimensions. Each dimension can lead to diverse well-being outcomes. Lastly, these studies call into question the need to postulate unmitigated forms of agency and communion. Taken as a whole, this work provides evidence for the complexity of the relations between gender and well-being.

This study was conducted to examine the problems and coping strategies of urban divorced men at the time of divorce (during the first month--Time 1) and six months later (Time 2). Both pre-determined coping strategies (formed as a result of previous research), and newly generated coping strategies for the target population were examined. Three independent variables-age, anxiety, and sex role orientation--were tested to ascertain their effect on degree of helpfulness of the coping strategies.Courthouse records were examined during a six-and-three-quarters-month time period in two counties in Indiana. The names of the men who had decrees granted during this time span were obtained. This resulted in 187 phone contacts in which the purpose of the study was explained and the research instruments briefly described. There were 164 men who volunteered to participate. They were sent a research packet consisting of a cover letter, a participant contact form, the instruments (a background questionnaire, Questionnaire II--a psychological adjustment scale, the Family Coping Inventory, the Maferr inventory of Masculine Values, and the Checklist of Problems and Concerns), and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. There were 123 men who returned the research packet at Time 1 and 84 at Time 2. Multivariate analysis and a correlated t-test were used to test the research hypotheses.FindingsSeven hypotheses were rejected at the .05 level. Significant differences were found:1. In the perceived helpfulness of pre-determined (and generated) coping strategies between older and younger men at Time 2.2. In the perceived helpfulness of pre-determined (and generated) coping strategies between higher and lower anxiety at Time 1.3. In the perceived helpfulness of pre-determined (and generated) coping strategies between higher and lower anxiety at Time 2.4. Between Time 1 and Time 2 means on the problem factors a. Between the means of Factor 1--Loneliness at Time 1 and Time 2.b. Between the means of Factor 5--Control and Competence at Time 1 and Time 2.Conclusions1. All divorced men do not fit the "self-confident swinging bachelor" stereotype. Problems related to social relationships seem to be a major cause of concern at both Time 1 and Time 2, as is loneliness. Loneliness decreases significantly, however, at Time 2.2. The results confirm the existence of stable problem factors over time.3. It appears that there are relatively stable coping strategies found across time and populations. Those found most often are concerned with: Maintaining Family Stability Establishing Independence Dating and Socializing with Friends Leisure ActivitiesContact with RelataivesDivorce Related ActivitiesSeeking Understanding Through Personal and Professional Relationships Expressing Self Community Involvement4. It would be beneficial to adopt a single coping strategy framework and impose this structure on subjects in future research studies rather than generate new sets of strategies. Degrees of helpfulness could be ascertained while providing a consistent foundation for comparison.5. Anxiety level seems to be the most important independent variable in this study in perceived degree of helpfulness. Age also plays a role.

The purpose of this study was to elicit information about the process of coping employed by battered women during a hypothetical abusive incident. The research question addressed in this study was: How do appraisal of an event, the use of coping resources, and coping strategies vary across three phases of a single stressful incident?Four variables were examined as group tendencies to react and changes over three phases of a hypothetical abusive incident. These variables were: 1) reported emotions, 2) extent to which the participants felt they could alter the situations (perceived control), 3) use of social support and 4) ways of coping at each stage. In addition, individual differences in coping as a function of emotions experienced, feelings of control and use of social support were also examined. The participants in this study were 54 females who had been admitted to a shelter for battered women. An experimental, repeated measures design was employed and data was analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance and linear, stepwise regression analysis. All hypotheses were tested at alpha = .05.The results of this study showed that emotions, perceptions of control and coping strategies significantly changed across the three phases of the abusive incident. There were significant main effects found for emotions, perceptions of control and types of social support used, regardless of the phase of the incident. In addition individual differences in coping as a function of cognitive appraisal variables were also found. This study shows that a stressful encounter i s a dynamic, unfolding process and riot a static unitary event. As the abusive incident proceeded from the anticipation stage to the outcome stage, there were concomitant changes in emotions, appraisals of control over the situation and coping strategies used. This study also showed that people cope in complex ways and that problem-focused coping was combined with emotion-focused coping at each stage of the encounter.

The Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ) is a self-report instrument designed to measure defensive functioning and coping styles. Originally developed by Bond and colleagues (1983), the questionnaire has been researched extensively. The present investigation sought to determine the factor validity of the newly developed DSQ-60 (Trijsburg, Bond & Drapeau, 2003) in a sample of English-speaking university students (n = 305) and French-speaking university students (n = 212). Using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, three factors, or defense styles were revealed: image distorting, affect regulating, and adaptive. Cronbach's alpha for the three styles was .64, .72, and .61, respectively. Results are compared with prior research on the DSQ.

Variation in developmental level was examined in a sample of 84 female and male university students. Each participant wrote a brief narrative describing the specific components of a stressful life event that elicited an attribution of threat. The identified components were assessed for level of ego functioning. In addition each participant was administered the Ways of Coping measure and the Washington University Sentence Completion Test. The results suggest that higher levels of ego functioning whether assessed by source of threat or by developmental task could be predicted by the choice of an analytical problem-oriented approach to stress management. Additionally the Event Appraisal measure has been presented as an instrument that introduces a predictive factor to level of ego development in a real-life situation. The results are discussed in light of the need to access the mechanisms that effect threat evaluations and the selection of the coping strategies that emerge as responses.

It has been argued that agency and communion define the fundamental dimensions of human existence. Agency represents strivings for expansion and elevation that surface as efforts to pursue social dominance. Communion represents strivings for contact and congregation that surface as efforts to preserve social bonds. From an evolutionary perspective, agency and communion define the problems of group living to which our ancestors were historically required to adapt. From a dyadic-interactional perspective, agency and communion organize the domain of behavior that individuals in contemporary societies are presently able to demonstrate. The purpose of this research was to explore the agentic and communal dimensions underlying social adaptation and emotional adjustment; this objective was pursued through the use of event-contingent recording procedures that require respondents to report upon their behavior in significant social interactions over extended time intervals. I first propose that emotional adjustment is optimized through mitigation processes that balance the expression of agency and communion in everyday behavior. Findings indicated that a balance within agency and within communion---achieved through moderate levels of agentic and communal expression---predicted optimal emotional adjustment. I then propose that the dark aspects of agency and communion---the human propensities to quarrel and submit---are equally relevant to social adaptation. In this regard, I argue that these propensities represent social rank strategies through which individuals grapple with and defend themselves against feelings of threat and inferiority. Consistent with an evolutionary perspective upon social competition, individuals tended to quarrel when threatened by subordinates and to submit when threatened by superiors. Consistent with an evolutionary perspective upon defeat and depression, individuals who typically felt more inferior tended to quarrel more frequently with subordina

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007. / Title from title screen (site viewed June 17, 2008). PDF text: 147 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 1 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3293921. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1991. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [84]-89).

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 70 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-45).