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Sex role orientation : its possible impact on the marital satisfaction of dual career couples

University of British Columbia

This study investigated the influence of sex role orientation on the marital satisfaction of dual career couples. The conceptual framework upon which the investigation was based was drawn from literature dealing with role change and symptomatic stresses in the lifestyle of dual career couples. The sample consisted of 46 dual career couples drawn from a large urban area on the West Coast of Canada. Three sets of hypotheses were explored, all using marital satis -faciton as the dependent variable. The specific hypotheses were as follows: (1) the marital satisfaction of androgynous couples is higher than the marital satisfaction of sex role stereotypic couples in dual career couples; (2) the marital satisfaction of androgynous men is higher than the marital satisfaction of sex role stereotypic men in dual career couples; (3) the marital satisfaction of wives of androgynous men is higher than the marital satisfaction of wives with sex role stereotypic husbands in dual career couples. The hypotheses were tested by the self administration of two inventories to both members of each couple. Bern's Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) was used to identify sex role orientation and a subscale of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) was used to measure marital satisfaction. An individual was considered androgynous if he or she scored above the median on both masculine and feminine subscales of the BSRI. Androgynous dyads were those couples in which both partners were androgynous. A female participant was considered sex role stereotypic if she scored above the median on the feminine subscale and below the median on the masculine subscale of the BSRI. The reverse situation applied to male participants. Sex role stereotypic dyads were those couples in which both partners were sex role stereotypic. To test the hypotheses, the t-test of the difference between means for independent groups was performed. Hypothesis 1 was not sustained suggesting that the marital satisfaction of androgynous couples was not significantly greater than the marital satisfaction of stereotyped couples. Support was obtained for Hypotheses 2 and 3 at the .05 level of significance. These results suggest that the marital satisfaction of the androgynous male was significantly higher than the marital satisfaction of a sex role stereotypic male. In addition, the hypothesis that the marital satisfaction of the wives of androgynous husbands was higher than the marital satisfaction of wives of sex role stereotypic husbands was supported. In the supplementary analysis, Pearson r correlation coefficients were used to explore the relationship between typologies on the BSRI and the scores and subscores on the DAS.

Text

2010-03-30

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/23067

Counselling Psychology

University of British Columbia

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