Self-Esteem, Intelligence and Academic Achievement of Indian College Students in Relation to their Sex Roles

Abstract

With 300 male and female undergraduate students from Arts, Commerce and Science faculties as subjects, the present investigation tested the hypothesis that the androgynous sex role would be associated with higher self-esteem, intelligence and academic achievement as compared to the masculine, feminine and undifferentiated sex roles. The only support for this hypothesis came from male subjects, with androgynous males scoring highest on self-esteem of all the sex roles. Masculine females anained the highest score on academic achievement as compared to females with other sex role identities. Apart from sex roles, male subjects scored higher on self-esteem and lower on academic achievement than female subjects and, among the three faculties, Commerce was highest on both intelligence and academic achievement as well as on femininity. The concept of psychological androgyny was critically examined in the light of these results.