1992 Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 145-159
Ninety-six female subjects in Experiment I, after exposed to the essay of a woman showing successfully either femininity or masculinity, read the criticism which was seemingly well-grounded or crudely negative against the way of life expressed in each essay, i. e., femininity or masculinity, and evaluated that woman along a variety of trait adjectives. At that evaluation, about half of Ss were told that they might take the criticism into consideration for their information and the form with the criticism was attached to the answer sheet, i. e., evaluations of Ss appeared to be grounded upon the criticism., but The rest of Ss read the criticism in the situation ostensibly unrelated to their evaluations and the answer sheet was independent of the criticism. Individual difference was assessed by a self-esteem inventory. From the viewpoint of self-evaluation maintenance or social-comparison jealousy, a woman who has desirable traits that Ss do not have is ego-threatening and Ss harbor the motive to derogate that woman but wish to conceal it. But in the situation where their evaluations appeared to be grounded upon the criticism, compared to Ss who read the crudely negative criticism, Ss who read the seemingly well-grounded one are, so to speak, provided with socially acceptable rationalization for derogation, so they can let out that motive. The results were as follows. Low self-esteem Ss had that motive toward a woman showing femininity and high self-esteem Ss had that motive toward a woman showing masculinity. These mean that women heighten self-esteem by acquiring femininity: Against popular view of fear of success, femininity is the most important as the basis of self-esteem. This reasoning was confirmed in Experiment II.
