A large body of research has documented the deleterious relationship between work stress and
health and wellbeing. This research has also examined which factors intrinsic and extrinsic to the
individual create variations in this pattern of relationship. Two notable factors in this regard are
gender and social support. Previous research has indicated that gender and social support can lead
to variations in the way individuals perceive, cope with and react to stress. This research has also
indicated that gender can influence the extent to which individuals will effectively utilise different
sources of social support. However, much of this research has focused on a dichotomous
conceptualisation of gender, restricting the exploration of gender to that which is biologically
defined. Research advances have been made utilising Bem’s (1974) Theory of Psychological
Androgyny. This theory has acknowledged and explored socially constructed ‘within gender’
differences of masculinity and femininity, proposing that androgyny, defined as an equal balance
of masculine and feminine traits within an individual, independent of biological sex, is the ideal
with regard to experienced optimal health and wellbeing. While this theory has enjoyed a vast
empirical base that indicates that those with an androgynous sex role identity tend to enjoy the
greatest health and wellbeing; the research on psychological androgyny has not been without its
limitations. Competing models of gender identity, such as the ‘Differentiated Model have
suggested that gender identities are made up of both socially desirable and socially undesirable
sex-typed behavioural traits; this model promoting a ‘new prescription’ for gender in the 21st
century. This new prescription requires the acknowledgement of both types of sex-based
behavioural traits, expanding the conceptualisation of gender to take into account both negative
and positive sex-based feminine and masculine traits, that is, traits that are both socially desirable
and undesirable in terms of masculinity and femininity. This new prescription thus intends to
segregate and explore the relationship between socially desirable and socially undesirable sex-
typed behavioural traits to health and wellbeing.
Consequently, the present study adopts this prescription in order to examine this expanded
conceptualisation of sex role identity, utilising a South African sample of female managers. More
specifically, the present study examines the relationship between socially desirable and socially
undesirable sex role identities and perceptions of work stress, social support, psychological wellbeing and self-esteem. In addition, the present study examines the moderating effect of social
support in the relationship between indicators of work stress and wellbeing.
The Extended Personality Attributes Questionnaire (EPAQ) was revised and utilised to assess the
expanded conceptualisation of both socially desirable and socially undesirable sex role identities
within a South African sample of 1477 female managers accessed from two national financial
institutions and one tertiary institution.
Results of the study indicate that the socially desirable, positively valenced identities fare better on
health indicators than the socially undesirable, negatively valenced identities. In all instances
positively valenced sex role identities perceive the least stress and have the highest level of
psychological wellbeing and self-esteem as compared to the negatively valenced identities.
Clearly those with negative identities, more particularly those that were negatively feminine or
negatively androgynous are significantly worse off in terms of health and wellbeing than those
with positive identities. Overall, the hypotheses proposing significant differences between positive
identities, that is, positive androgyny and the negative femininity and negative androgyny, with a
few exceptions, were supported.
Three sources of social support, that is, colleague, supervisor and partner support had a main
effect on psychological wellbeing while all five sources, that is colleague, supervisor, partner,
family and friend had a main effect on self-esteem. With regard to moderating effects, both
colleague and supervisor support interacted with work stress to moderate the relationship between
work stress and psychological wellbeing to reduce the impact of work stress on wellbeing. None
of the non-work sources of support interacted to moderate the effect of work stress on
psychological wellbeing. In addition no interaction effects for all sources of support were
observed for self-esteem with the exception of friend support which moderated the relationship
between work stress and self-esteem. However, this interaction effect was in an unexpected
direction, in that friend support exacerbated the relationship; indicating that the higher the social
support the lower the self-esteem. Based on the results of the study and the methodology utilised, a number of strengths and
weaknesses of the present research are identified. With regard to strengths, the present study has
added to the literature on sex role identity and its implication for female managers within a South
African context by identifying specific positive sex role identities and specific negative sex role
identities and their relationship to health and wellbeing indicators within an occupational context.
In addition, the findings of the present research suggest that there may be specific contingencies
pertaining to stressor situations, the contexts within which they occur and the domains upon which
they predict, which may prescribe which sex role identity may be most or least beneficial in terms
of health and wellbeing.
Study limitations have both theoretical and methodological implications for future research. In
particular, issues pertaining to the measurement of gender are outlined that need to be resolved by
future researchers in order to effectively measure the construct of gender and its relationship to
wellbeing. In addition, in order to determine which sex role identities will have the most or least
beneficial health effects, future researchers need to develop and explore specificity hypotheses that
enable the examination of gender in relation to specific stressors within specific socio-cultural
contexts and the relationship thereof to particular predictor domains.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/13360 |
| Date | 07 January 2014 |
| Creators | Bernstein, Colleen |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
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