Conceptualizing gender in personality theory and research

Abigail J. Stewart and Brinton Lakes

This volume is based on a special issue of the Journal of Personality devoted to the question of how "gender" is, and (especially) should be, conceptualized in personality theory and research. It was designed for students and researchers. The idea for the issue grew out of our conviction that "gender" has played a curious and paradoxical role in personality theory and research to date. First, gender has been widely assumed to have an important role in personality. Indeed, according to some theories, an individual's gender provides a major "organizing principle" for personality development (Freud, 1905/1953, 1933/1964; Jung, 1926). Nevertheless, despite fairly elaborate conceptualizations, most aspects of these theories have not been submitted to empirical examination (Fisher & Greenberg, 1977; Flowerman, 1954). At the same time personality researchers have tended, like the theorists, to assume that "gender" (or biological sex) is an important "variable" and have routinely examined empirical differences between the sexes (Harris, 1972) in the absence of clearly articulated conceptualizations of the possible or real meaning of biological sex, or gender roles, for the phenomenon under study. The inevitable yield of these entirely separate endeavors is elegant theory with no grounding in data and an ever-growing but uninterpretable account of discovered differences—and nondifferences— between the sexes (Block, 1976).

The landscape of research and theory on gender and personality has also been substantially changed by theoretical and methodological developments within personality research (e.g., idiographic vs. nomethetic approach to personality research, qualitative vs. quantitative research methods) and by the impact of the women's liberation movement on research and theory about women. Within this latter context, psychologists concerned with women have developed theory and research that seek to correct many of the biases of traditional personality theory rooted in an analysis of the experiences of white, middleclass, college-educated males (Grady, 1981; Reardon & Prescott, 1977). Parlee (1975, 1979) and Henley (1974) enumerated several of the perspectives generated by psychologists concerned about women in their discussion of psychology of, against, and for women. Minimally, work that is "of" or "for" women requires that the researcher take women's experience as a serious starting point for the research endeavor, not as "noise" to be controlled. More basically, this critique has led to the reformulation of existing theories (e.g., Gilligan's 1982 theory of women's morality based on Responsibility, in contrast to men's morality based on rights) and to the development of new theory (e.g., Miller's 1984 development of a theory of women's sense of "Self-in-relation"). Parallel developments have emerged in the area of methodology (see, for example, Roberts, 1981). Each of these strategies has generated research and theory that have served as counterpoint to more traditional theorizing about males and females (see, e.g., Chodorow, 1978; Gilligan, 1982; Lewis, 1976) and generated entirely new questions for psychological research (see, e.g., Bern, 1974, on Androgyny; Homey, 1972, on Fear of success; Wolman & Frank, 1975, on token women).

Our goal in this text was to provide an opportunity for students, researchers, and theorists to consider the ways in which biological sex and social roles, social statuses, and life experiences linked to gender should be conceptualized in personality theory and research. Our aim was to encourage work that brought together: (a) those notions from classical and recent personality theories that are useful, (b) those findings from personality research that have implications for assessing the utility of theoretical concepts, and (c) those empirical explorations that give rise to entirely new conceptualizations of the meaning of gender for our work. The work presented here is both grounded in classical and recent personality theory and research and informed by the growing body of feminist theory in psychology. The papers do indeed challenge the adequacy of traditional theory, demonstrate the meaninglessness of piling up ad hoc findings, and point to several—sometimes divergent—approaches to conceptualizing gender in personality theory and research.

Moreover, these papers reflect a diversity of procedures and approaches quite different from the methodological narrowness of psychologists' usual practice. This diversity reflects our conviction that the challenge of conceptualizing gender in personality theory and research demands methods that go beyond experimental paradigms. Personality researchers (see, e.g., Carlson, 1985; Runyan, 1982) and feminist theorists (see, e.g., Eichler, 1980; Stanley & Wise, 1983) have critically evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the experimental paradigm in the development of knowledge about women and men. Although no clear consensus about what constitutes "feminist" methodology has emerged from the critique of traditional methods and the debate this criticism has generated (Reinharz, 1983), the discussion has fostered among many researchers (Lott, 1985) greater flexibility in approaches to studying women's and men's lives.

Despite the emergence of a body of critical theorizing about the limitations of the traditional experimental method (see, e.g., Buss, 1979; McKenna & Kessler, 1977; Manicas & Secord, 1983; Sampson, 1978; Unger, 1983) and growing consensus among psychologists that this reflects only one among many approaches to understanding, for example, gender and personality issues, the vast majority of published research in the field relies on this method (see, e.g., Lykes & Stewart, 1983). The papers in this volume depart from the usual practice in personality research and thus represent a broad range of procedures and approaches.

Methods of data collection reflected in the papers include conventional personality batteries, projective tests, interviews, and open-ended responses to written questions; and the subjects of research range in age from children through late middle-aged adults and include other than middle-class, college-educated people. Data are...