A Comparison of Sex Role and Related Personality Traits in Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Women

Self-descriptions on sex role characteristics and related personality traits including achievement and affiliation were compared in four age groups of women: eighteen to twenty-two, twenty-nine to thirty-nine, forty to fifty-five, and sixty to seventy-five year-olds. In general, the two younger groups emerged as least like the traditional feminine sex role stereotype. In comparison to the older women, they were more willing to ascribe masculine sex role characteristics to themselves and rated themselves as less responsible, self-controlled, and affiliative. Conversely, the women over sixty and homemakers in their forties and fifties adhered most strongly to the conventional feminine traits. These differences are explained in terms of the recent changes in societal attitudes toward sex roles. There is also some evidence that significant life roles are related to self-descriptions on these personality dimensions.