Gender Differences in Self-Esteem of College Students

Abstract

According to previous studies, gender differences are associated with self-esteem level (e.g., Aidman & Carroll, 2003; Buswell, Hyde, Kling, &Shower, 1999; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, &Robins, 2003). But few studies have examined whether males are associated with higher self-esteem levels or lower self-esteem levels. In addition, studies that examined the relationship between self-esteem level and gender differences have not examined participants who are college students. Therefore, the researcher conducted this study to examine the relations between years in college, gender, and self-esteem. The purpose of this study is to extend previous research by examining the relationship between gender differences and the self-esteem level of college students. The researcher gave each participant a survey made up of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and demographic questions which is a valid and reliable measure. Researchers overserved there is a significant difference between gender and self-esteem in college students. Finally, the researcher found that male students have higher self-esteem scores than female students. Because the researcher did an ex-post factor study, hence researcher does not sure why gender differences have an impact on self-esteem. Further study can study on how gender differences influence self-esteem.

Self-esteem is defined as a person’s belief in their value (Josephs, Markus, &Tafarodi,1992). Self-esteem is very important because it can affect people making choices and decisions. “In decision making, self-esteem is an individual's self-evaluation of his/ her decision-making capability in a given situation and that confidence, or lack of it, may affect decisions made” (Greenberg, et all, 1992). When people value themselves and have positive self-esteem, they feel safe and worthwhile. Positive self-esteem can give people the confidence to deal with issues and face troubles (Greenberg, et all, 1992). Otherwise, people who lack self-esteem will be more anxious and feel more inferior (Greenberg, et all, 1992).

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In one study, researchers found there is a significant relationship between ethnic identity achievement and self-esteem (Verkuyten & Brug, 2002). The participants in the study were 281 adolescents with ethnically Dutch parents and 94 adolescents with Surinamese parents in the western part of the Netherlands (Verkuyten & Brug, 2002). The researcher gave participants one open-ended question assessing self-identification and 14 Likert-type items, with a 4-point scale for ethnic behavior and practices, and ethnic identity achievement, including both exploration and commitment with the evaluation of ethnic group membership (Verkuyten & Brug, 2002). And they found that self-esteem was negatively related to perceived discrimination. People who are discriminated against can suffer significant negative consequences. General well-being, self-esteem, self-worth, and social relations can be severely impacted as a result of discrimination. Previous research has suggested that perceived discrimination can lead to mental health problems such as increased stress, depression, and anxiety (Verkuyten & Brug, 2002).

In a similar study, researchers also found that perceived discrimination also impacts self-esteem levels (Cassidy, Oconnor, Howe, & Warden, 2004). Many ethnic minority groups, felt prejudice and discrimination every day in their daily life. Therefore, they chose 154 young people composed of 27 Chinese, 39 Indians, and 88 Pakistanis (Cassidy, Oconnor, Howe, & Warden, 2004). They asked participants to complete a scale that included six items: two to assess the perceived frequency of unfair or negative treatment due to ethnic backgrounds on campus or off-campus; and four to assess feeling unacceptable to society because of their ethnicity (Cassidy, Oconnor, Howe, & Warden, 2004). In the end, analysis of variance showed there were no significant differences between ethnic groups. However, compared with ethnic minority women, ethnic minority men are less likely to experience gender discrimination and, therefore, may be more likely to attribute negative experiences to ethnic discrimination (Cassidy, Oconnor, Howe, & Warden, 2004).

Previous research has examined the stability of self-esteem (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, &Robins, 2003). A good understanding of the stability of self-esteem can provide information about how the “subconscious of self-esteem” changes to different situations and environmental factors (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, &Robins, 2003). They searched a few relevant studies and examined the average stability for 50 studies in the meta-analytic database and found that the average level of self-esteem stability did differ by gender that male has higher self-esteem than female (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, &Robins, 2003). Similar research examined the relationship between implicit self-esteem and gender (Aidman, & Carroll, 2003). There were no significant gender differences observed in implicit self-esteem. However, the researchers found that male participants have significantly higher scores on the self-liking components than females (Aidman, & Carroll, 2003).

There is another research that found gender differences have an effect on self-esteem (Kling, Hyde, Shower, &Buswell, 1999). The researchers gave 181 participants the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale and modifications of the RSES. And got the scores were statistically significant reflecting males got higher self-esteem scores than females (Kling, Hyde, Shower, &Buswell, 1999). Self-esteem increases with age, from adolescence to adulthood in people around the world, but at every age, men tend to have higher levels of self-esteem (Josephs, Markus, &Tafarodi,1992). Furthermore, in this study, we are going to test if there is a significant relationship between gender and self-esteem because previous research revealed conflicting findings (e.g., Aidman & Carroll, 2003; Buswell, Hyde, Kling, &Shower, 1999; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, &Robins, 2003). Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to extend previous research by examining the relationship between gender differences and self-esteem. In addition, none of the previous research discussed mentions the population of college students. Thus, we are going to provide more information on gender differences impact self-esteem in college students. Finally, according to these previous researches, we predicted that there will be a difference between gender differences and the self-esteem of college students.

Method

Participants

Participants were 613 college students (including 162 men and 451 women) from Psych 211 class at James Madison University. Participants were all enrolled in psychology courses and participated in exchange for course credit. The participants’ mean age was 20.41 years (SD=3.23) and the sample included 80 freshmen, 285 sophomores, 177 juniors, 69 seniors, and two who did not report their academic year. Their average GPA was 3.08 (SD=0.53).

Materials

We gave participants a short survey with five demographic questions and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). The answers to each of the 10 items on the RSES are scored on a four-point Likert scale, including the following options: strongly disagree, disagree, agree, and strongly agree. Assign a value of 1 to 4 for each response (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, 4 = strongly agree), and five of 10 items are scored in reverse to control possible response bias. The total self-esteem score ranges from 10 to 40, with 40 being the highest self-esteem score.

Procedure

In this experiment, we set gender as the independent variable and the score of self-esteem as the dependent variable. We gave participants a form that include the demographic questions and RSES. Participants had an unlimited amount of time to fill out the form. However, most of them finished the form within 5 minutes. We debriefed participants on the purpose of the study.

Results

To examine the extent of the self-esteem differences between genders on the RSES, we conducted an independent t. An independent sample t-test found a statistically significant mean difference in the means between the men group (M= 32.65, SD=4.57) and women (M=31.22, SD=4.63), t (611) =3.39, p=.001 (two-tailed), d= 0.27. As information is shown in Figure 1, we can see the significant mean difference between men and women.

Discussion

The purpose of this study is to extend previous research by examining the relationship between gender differences and the self-esteem level of college students. We predicted that there will be a significant difference between gender differences and self-esteem. We gave each participant a survey made up of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and demographic questions. As predicted in our study, we found that male students have higher self-esteem than females. This result supported our hypothesis that gender differences do have an impact on self-esteem.

This finding is consistent with several studies (Kling, Hyde, Shower, &Buswell, 1999; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, &Robins, 2003) on gender and self-esteem. This finding support previous finding (Kling, Hyde, Shower, &Buswell, 1999; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, &Robins, 2003) in many ways. For instance, we all tested whether gender has influenced self-esteem. And we found that gender does have an impact on self-esteem which is male has higher self-esteem level than female (Kling, Hyde, Shower, &Buswell, 1999; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, &Robins, 2003). Nonetheless, our study found different results than Aidman and Carroll’s (2003) study which found no difference between gender and implicit self-esteem. There are several possible explanations for this difference. First, females demonstrated stronger implicit gender identity than males. Female participants also showed a strong implicit “female favoritism”. In comparison, males as a group showed no implicit gender-attitude bias (Aidman & Carroll, 2003). Nevertheless, their study lack of participants, so they could not draw a conclusion between gender differences and self-esteem.

We observed that gender differences did have influences on self-esteem in college students. However, this result cannot tell us why gender differences did have an impact on self-esteem. According to our findings and previous research (Kling, Hyde, Shower, &Buswell, 1999; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, &Robins, 2003), here are a few reasons for gender differences exist. First, it is a common, but erroneous, notion that “men and women differ because of the simple presence (or absence) of a Y chromosome and its accompanying effects on testosterone levels” (Brown, &Diekman, 2007). On the other hand, Women were more hesitant than men to do tasks that require confidence, such as speaking at a meeting and applying for a job. Furthermore, women often underestimate their abilities, and men are more likely than women to think they're ready for a promotion (Brown, &Diekman, 2007). Researchers believe that genetic differences and cross-cultural sociocultural differences may all contribute to this pattern. Currently, most of the world is a “patriarchal society”. Therefore, the gender gap in self-confidence is likely to be related to women's perception of their inferiority (Kim, Chois, & Hwang, 2008). In addition, women who earn less than their male counterparts are more likely to experience anxiety and depression (Kim, Chois, & Hwang, 2008). The more equal the treatment of gender, the more likely women are going to compare themselves to men which cause women to stereotype themselves. Similarly, in a more gender-equal society, the only factor that educates women to hinder their own success is themselves, so women are more likely to blame themselves for their poor achievement than men (Brown, & Diekman, 2007).

Although we have achieved gratifying results, there were several limitations to our study. First, we only surveyed psychology major students, if students in any major were surveyed, the results might be different and more accurate. Moreover, our study contains 162 men and 451 women, and the ratio of male to female is unequal. Further studies can contain more male participants in order to make the gender ratio equal and make the consequence more accurate. In addition, our results only suggest that male college students have higher self-esteem than females, but we do not know what causes gender differences have impacted self-esteem. Hence, further study can focus on why the male has higher self-esteem than female.

All in all, the purpose of this study is to extend previous research by examining the relations between gender differences and the self-esteem level of college students. Thus, we predicted that there will be a difference between gender differences and the self-esteem of college students. We observed a significant difference between gender and self-esteem in 613 college students. The results show male students have higher self-esteem than female students. Also, we believe that our study has extended the relationship between gender differences and self-esteem in college students. Further study can study the reason why gender difference has an impact on self-esteem and why male has higher self-esteem level than female.

References

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