The relationship between patterns of sex role identity, work stress, social support and wellbeing in South African female managers.

[摘要] Alargebodyofresearchhas documentedthedeleteriousrelationshipbetweenwork stressand health and wellbeing. This research has also examined which factors intrinsic and extrinsic to the individual create variations in this pattern ofrelationship. Two notablefactors in this regard are gender and social support. Previous research has indicated that gender and social support can lead to variations in the way individuals perceive, cope with and react to stress. This research has also indicated that gender can influence the extent to which individuals will effectively utilise different sourcesofsocialsupport.However,muchofthisresearchhasfocusedonadichotomous conceptualisationofgender,restrictingtheexplorationofgendertothatwhichisbiologically defined.Researchadvanceshavebeenmade utilisingBem’s(1974)TheoryofPsychological Androgyny.Thistheoryhasacknowledgedandexploredsociallyconstructed'withingender’ differences of masculinity and femininity, proposing that androgyny, defined as an equal balance of masculine and feminine traits within an individual, independent of biological sex, is the ideal withregardtoexperiencedoptimalhealthandwellbeing.Whilethistheoryhasenjoyedavast empirical basethatindicatesthatthosewithanandrogynoussexroleidentity tendto enjoythe greatest health and wellbeing; the research on psychological androgyny has not been without its limitations.Competingmodelsofgenderidentity,suchasthe'DifferentiatedModelhave suggestedthatgenderidentitiesaremade upofboth sociallydesirableandsociallyundesirable sex-typedbehaviouraltraits;thismodelpromotinga'newprescription’forgenderinthe21stcentury.Thisnewprescriptionrequirestheacknowledgementofbothtypesofsex-based behavioural traits,expandingthe conceptualisation of genderto takeinto account both negative and positive sex-based feminine and masculine traits, that is, traits that are both socially desirable andundesirableintermsofmasculinityandfemininity.Thisnewprescriptionthusintendsto segregateandexploretherelationshipbetweensociallydesirableandsociallyundesirablesex-typed behavioural traits to health and wellbeing. Consequently,thepresentstudyadoptsthisprescriptioninordertoexaminethisexpanded conceptualisation of sex role identity, utilising a South African sample of female managers. More specifically,thepresentstudyexaminestherelationshipbetweensociallydesirableand socially undesirablesexroleidentitiesandperceptionsofworkstress,socialsupport,psychological wellbeing and self-esteem. In addition, the present study examines the moderating effect of social support in the relationship between indicators of work stress and wellbeing.The Extended Personality Attributes Questionnaire (EPAQ) was revised and utilised to assess the expanded conceptualisation of both socially desirable and socially undesirable sex role identities withinaSouthAfricansampleof1477female managersaccessedfromtwonationalfinancial institutions and one tertiary institution.Results of the study indicate that the socially desirable, positively valenced identities fare better on healthindicatorsthanthesociallyundesirable,negativelyvalencedidentities.Inallinstances positivelyvalencedsexroleidentitiesperceivetheleaststressandhavethehighestlevelof psychologicalwellbeingandself-esteemascomparedtothenegativelyvalencedidentities. Clearlythosewithnegativeidentities, more particularlythosethatwerenegativelyfeminine or negativelyandrogynous are significantlyworse offintermsofhealthandwellbeingthanthose with positive identities. Overall, the hypotheses proposing significant differences between positive identities, that is, positive androgyny and the negative femininity and negative androgyny, with a few exceptions, were supported.Threesourcesofsocialsupport,thatis,colleague,supervisorandpartnersupporthadamain effectonpsychologicalwellbeingwhileallfivesources,thatiscolleague,supervisor,partner, familyandfriendhadamaineffectonself-esteem.Withregardtomoderatingeffects,both colleague and supervisor support interacted with work stress to moderate the relationship between work stress and psychological wellbeing to reduce the impact of work stress on wellbeing. None ofthenon-worksourcesofsupportinteractedtomoderatetheeffectofworkstresson psychologicalwellbeing.Inadditionnointeractioneffectsforallsourcesofsupportwere observedforself-esteemwiththeexception of friendsupport which moderatedtherelationship betweenworkstressandself-esteem.However, thisinteractioneffectwasinanunexpected direction, in that friend support exacerbated the relationship; indicating that the higher the social support the lower the self-esteem. Basedontheresultsofthestudyandthemethodologyutilised,anumberofstrengthsand weaknesses of the present research are identified. With regard to strengths, the present study has added to the literature on sex role identity and its implication for female managers within a South African context by identifying specific positive sex role identities and specific negative sex role identities and their relationship to health and wellbeing indicators within an occupational context. In addition, the findings of the present research suggest that there may be specific contingenciespertaining to stressor situations, the contexts within which they occur and the domains upon which they predict, which may prescribe which sex role identity may be most or least beneficial in terms of health and wellbeing.Studylimitations haveboththeoreticalandmethodologicalimplicationsforfutureresearch.In particular, issues pertaining to the measurement of gender are outlined that need to be resolved by future researchersin orderto effectively measure the construct of gender anditsrelationship to wellbeing. In addition, in order to determine which sex role identities will have the most or least beneficial health effects, future researchers need to develop and explore specificity hypotheses that enabletheexaminationofgenderinrelationtospecificstressorswithinspecificsocio-cultural contexts and the relationship thereof to particular predictor domains.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand