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published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of sex-role identity and sex-role attitude congruence on behavior as measured by group leader choice.Research volunteers were 84 female undergraduates from a midwestern university who were identified as sextyped or androgynous, as measured by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, and as liberal or conservative in their sex-role attitudes, as measured by the short version of the Attitudes Toward Women Scale.Subjects were given resumes of four group leaders and asked to select the leader,they judged to be more competent in leadership skills and with whom they wished to work in a group experience. The four leader choices included two female resumes which reflected more indices of competence than the two male leader choices. Competency-based leader choice was indicated by selection of female leader. Genderbased leader choice was indicated by selection of male leader. It was predicted that androgynous liberal subjects would demonstrate competency-based leader choice more frequently than androgynous conservative subjects, and that sex-typed conservative subjects would demonstrate competencybased leader choice less frequently than sex-typed liberal subjects.A differences in proportions test was employed to test comparisons in the sex-typed and androgynous categories with respect to success as measured by competency-based leader choice. Comparisons were made between sex-typed liberal and conservative and between androgynous liberal and conservative cells. A .05 confidence level was necessary to reject the null hypotheses. Analysis of the data indicated that there were no significant differences in leader choice in the two categories. Congruence of sexrole identity and sex-role attitude in sex-typed and androgynous subjects was not found to effect behavior as measured by competency-based group leader choice.

Despite the universality, inevitability and normalcy of menopause, little is known of women's experiences. In particular, little or nothing is known of the meaning women attach to menopause. Despite (or because of) this lack of information, a controversy currently exists as to how women can best negotiate menopause, and as to the risks or benefits of hormone replacement theory. Research methodology was guided by recent studies on women's unique ways of knowing, valuing and construction of meaning. Menopause was explored within the framework of a group format with five postmenopausal coresearchers over a nine-week period. The women narrated their stories, listened to the stories of the other group members, reflected on their experiences and discussed those they had in common. Individual follow-up interviews were conducted 3 months later during which the coresearchers validated the transcript and offered additional perspectives. Despite widely varying experiences of menopause, 20 common threads were located. This study details a strong developmental and transitional component to the coresearchers' menopausal experiences, as well as the impact of a menstrual taboo and negative stereotype. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

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Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

This research is an exploratory step toward identifying how social inequality affects interracial friendship among women and opportunities to develop such relationships. By considering the nonlocal determinants of individual experiences and the ways in which structural variables may influence and operate in friendships, this research attempts to illuminate how micro-level action is actually rooted in "macrolevel" social processes. In keeping with feminist standpoint epistemology, this research begins with the subjective experiences of 15 pairs of African-American/white friends. The women's descriptions of their same-race and cross-race friendships provided a starting point from which to identify the ways in which racial/ ethnic and class inequality shape and operate in these relationships. Social inequality creates economic, ideological, and experiential divisions among African-American and white women. Opportunities for friendship were affected by the proximity of African-American and white women, and long-lived interracial friendships developed among women of similar classes in settings that fostered interracial contact and discussion of racial issues. Group position may also have contributed to the interviewee's desire to make friendships across race. Crossrace friendships were non-threatening and unique to the white interviewees, while African-American interviewees stressed the primacy of same-race ties. The voices of the women participants provided many examples of the ways in which interracial friendships reflected the dynamics of institutional racism and caused difficulties in their friendships across race. Racial/ ethnic inequality was exemplified by a lack of common base from which the women could understand each other, problems resulting from white racism and privilege, African-American interviewees' ambivalence over interracial dating, and different beliefs about the importance of racial/ ethnic identity. The divergent standpoints of African-American and white women created barriers to disclosure in friendships across race. African-American interviewee's experiences of everyday racism caused them to believe that their white friends could not understand their experiences and limited the kinds of information that African American interviewees felt that they could share with white friends. The standpoint of some white women enabled them to ignore racism and downplay the importance of racial identity. The need for African-American women to educate whites about racism and aspects of African-American culture sometimes obstructed interracial friendships. While African-American and white women may form affectionate ties, friendship is not exempt from, nor does it eliminate inequality.

A self-handicapping conceptualization of the function of the self-applied codependent label is presented. It was proposed that the self-appellation of the codependent label would function as a self-handicap when used by women who were not children of an alcoholic (COAs). It was also proposed that such a use of this label constituted a tendency to self-handicap and that these women would be more likely to employ self-handicapping strategies in situations involving interpersonal evaluations than: (1) controls who are not COAs or codependent; (2) COAs who describe themselves as codependent; or (3) COAs who do not endorse codependency. Additionally, in situations which involved interpersonal evaluations by males portrayed as either exploitive or nurturant, it was predicted that women who were COAs (with or without the codependent label) would likely to rate the exploitive male positively. The results did not support the self-handicapping hypothesis for women who labeled themselves codependent. The evidence suggests that COAs may self-handicap more than non-COAs. In addition, those women who endorsed the codependent label regardless of COA status did not distinguish between exploitive and nurturant males in liking, and non-codependent COAs liked the exploitive male least.