Gender Differences in Self‐Ratings of Abilities and Skills

Abstract

Students' ratings of their abilities and skills were examined in relationship to self‐esteem and to their ratings of same‐gender peers. Participants were 112 students (59 women and 53 men) who were administered the Rosenberg (1965) self‐esteem scale and a questionnaire assessing self‐ratings of 14 general abilities and 30 specific skills, as well as peer ratings of the skills. Results indicated that (a) gender differences were observed on 3 of the 14 general abilities, (b) there were significant interactions between gender, peer versus self‐ratings and skill areas, and (c) self‐esteem scores were related to some of the self‐ratings.

Personality, other dispositional variables, and human adaptability

“…However, very few gender differences in confidence were found within occupational group; the small differences that were found were for confidence areas other than the one characterizing their occupation. Using a slightly different approach, Swanson and Lease (1990) found that college men rated themselves and their same-sex peers higher than college women rated themselves and their same-sex peers only on the Realistic theme. Women rated themselves and their same-sex peers higher than men rated themselves and their same-sex peers only on the Social theme.…”

“…Gender differences have been reported in self-efficacy for the six Holland (1997) themes as well Parsons & Betz, 1998;Swanson & Lease, 1990). found that college men reported more confidence than college women in the Realistic, Enterprising, Investigative, and Conventional themes.…”

“…In regression analyses they found that consideration of occupational alternatives was predicted by gender, self-efficacy, and vocational interest, but not by ability. Although self-efficacy is a personal estimation of ability, research has shown that measurements of self-efficacy and ability on a particular domain are often only moderately and inconsistently related (Lent et al, 1984(Lent et al, , 1986Swanson & Lease, 1990). Self-efficacy has been described as more important than ability in the prediction of performance (Lent et al, 1994); in one study, math aptitude scores were shown not to contribute to the prediction of major choice at all (Betz & Hackett, 1983).…”

“…As a result, self-efficacy for a behavior that does not contribute to the individual's evaluation of self-worth should not be empirically related to self-esteem. Interestingly, gender differences have been found in the relationship between self-esteem and self-efficacy (Swanson & Lease, 1990). Specifically, confidence in the Social and Enterprising Holland themes correlated with self-esteem for women, but for men no significant relationships were found between self-esteem and confidence in any of the Holland themes.…”

“…It has also been demonstrated that women have lower efficacy expectations for traditionally male content domains, such as mathematics (Betz & Hackett, 1983;Campbell & Hackett, 1986;Lent et al, 1991;Matsui et al, 1990) and mechanical ability (Swanson & Lease, 1990). Betz and Hackett (1983) found math self-efficacy to be the strongest predictor of choice of a math-related major, women's lower math efficacy is reflected in their underrepresentation in such majors.…”