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A Multifactorial Approach to the Study of Gender Characteristics
Author(s) -
Koestner Richard,
Aube Jennifer
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1995.tb00510.x
Subject(s) - psychology , personality , perspective (graphical) , gender identity , diversity (politics) , identity (music) , social psychology , personality theory , epistemology , sociology , computer science , philosophy , physics , artificial intelligence , anthropology , acoustics
The present article reviews some of the central conceptual issues confronted by gender researchers as they have tried to forge a theory of gender identity that can account for the complexity and diversity of gender‐related characteristics displayed by women and men. An emerging consensus suggests that gender is incorporated into an individual's self‐concept in multiple and loosely connected ways. We review one example of this emerging multiplicity perspective, Spence's (1993) multifactorial gender identity theory, and describe three recent studies testing its usefulness. We also discuss ways in which multiplicity models of gender could benefit from considering parallel developments in the general personality literature regarding the problem of levels or domains. In particular, it is argued that Me Adams's (this issue) integrative three‐level model of the structure of personality offers a helpful framework for guiding future test construction and theory development in gender research.