Examine the moderating effect of felt pressure in conformity to Masculine-stereotyped behaviours on the effect of gender typicality on self-esteem

Abstract

This study examined the effects of gender typicality and felt pressure in conformity to masculine-stereotyped behaviours on self-esteem by adopting the dual identity approach and the concept of psychological androgyny to address the current debate on the effects of this multifaceted gender conceptualisation on self-esteem. There are a total of 73 participants recruited from social media platforms and word-of-mouth in this study and most of them are Asian and female. They completed the questionnaires measuring their gender typicality, felt pressure in conformity to masculine-stereotyped behaviours, and selfesteem online. Data were analysed using the non-hierarchical K-means cluster analysis for the categorisation of gender identity groups and multiple regressions for the simple and moderation effects of gender typicality and felt pressure in conformity to masculine-stereotyped behaviours on self-esteem. Three gender identity groups have been identified in this study and the results showed that individuals who are high in similarity to own-gender and other-gender were having significantly better self-esteem than the other two groups, which supported the original assumption of the concept of psychological androgyny. However, felt pressure in conformity to masculine- stereotyped behaviours was not significantly predicting self-esteem nor moderating the effects of gender typicality on self-esteem. This result may be due to the validity of the items included in the questionnaires. Further study could be on revisiting the items to be measured in the felt pressure and conducting a larger scale research in order to ensure sufficient power to capture such effects.