Gender Role Conformity: The Role of Parental Socialization Practices

• In Event: Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Topic - Sex, Gender

Abstract

Identity development is the key developmental task of adolescence, as young people are exploring and committing to different roles, values, and beliefs in multiple domains (Erikson, 1968). Gender identity – one specific domain of identity – involves the extent to which a person’s experiences align with one gender or another (Steensma, Kreukels, de Vries, & Cohen-Kettenis, 2013). Socialization is learning how to behave that is acceptable in society. Gender socialization can be implicit (i.e., expressing beliefs without conscious awareness) or explicit (i.e., consciously expressing beliefs on gender). One example of implicit gender socialization is modeling gender roles. Modeling is people and their ability to imitate specific people, such as parents or mentors (Stockard, 2006). Modeling may differ based on the sex of the parent and the sex of the adolescent. During childhood both males and females, tend to identify more with females given the closer relationship with mothers (Stockard, 2006) yet less is known about whether this same process remains throughout adolescence. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine sex differences in gender socialization practices during adolescence.
Data for this study came from the Sloan 500 Family Study, a publicly available dataset. We utilized the adolescent sample, which included 465 adolescents (Mage = 15.3; 51.7% female).The self-reported race/ethnicity was white (80%), Black (8.2%), Hispanic (4.3%), Asian (0.6%), or other (6.9%) (Schneider & Waite, 2008). Gender role conformity was assessed through four items (i.e., who will take care of children, who will cook, who will financially support the family (reverse coded), who will do chores) and parent modeling of female gender roles was assessed through four items (mother [father] time spent for…household shopping, taking siblings to and from, cooking, dishes, cleaning house, laundry).
Regression models were run separately for males and females due to the fact that conforming to female gender roles has a different meaning based on sex. For males, father’s modeling of female gender roles was a significant predictor of adolescent male’s willingness to also conform to female gender roles (B = .13, p = .01) whereas both mother’s (B = -.18, p < .001) and father’s (B = .25, p < .001) modeling of female gender roles were significant predictors of female adolescents’ conformity to female gender roles.

Results highlight the role of father’s in gender identity development that both male and female adolescents were more likely to adopt female gender roles if fathers did so. Interestingly, female adolescents were less likely to adopt female gender roles when their mothers modeled these behaviors. The role of fathers in gender identity have been scarce in the literature and results may reflect continually changing roles of fathers over time. Results begin to shed light on sex differences in parental socialization practices of young people’s gender identity and the continued need for theoretically grounded, developmentally informed research.

Authors

• Brittney Prince, Utah Valley University
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer Shubert, Utah Valley University
  Non-Presenting Author