The Effects of Personal Heterosuggestion and two Forms of Autosuggestion upon Postural Movement

Abstract

The relationships among marital status, gender role traits, and self-esteem in a sample of American men and women was investigated in the present study. Divorce was found to be associated with shifts in gender role identity, leading to greater masculine (but not androgynous) personality traits for both sexes. Intact marriages were associated with higher self-esteem and greater masculinity for both sexes, and greater feminity for women. Masculinity and feminity both contributed to women's self-esteem, but only masculinity was associated with male self-esteem. Finally, comparisons between the present data and those of Spence and Helmreich (1978) suggest the need for more research on gender role identification with nonacademic adult samples.