Plain and Dumb? Negative self-view in Argentinian young women.

ALICIA FACIO; SANTIAGO RESETT; CLARA MISTRORIGO

Washington DC

Congreso; 113º Convención anual de la American Psychosocial Association; 2005

American Psychosocial Association

Argentina is a developed Latin American country where the attitude has steadily decreased and the gap between the genders in work, education, and political activity has been narrowing over the decades. Considering this positive context regarding sexual roles, small or non-existing differences between young women?s and young men?s self-perception could be expected. Female self-perception was less favorable than could be expected regarding the diminishing gap in work, education, political involvement and the sexual freedom prevailing in country-region. However, results of the present study showed that Argentinian young males?s higher evaluation of their looks and not because Argentinian females regarded themselves less good-looking that their American counterparts. Also, females rated their athletic competence worse than males but, differently from first world, they perceived themselves worse in other dimensions of their self-concept, too. In spite of their greater educational success, they evaluated their scholastic competence in late adolescence and their intellectual ability in emerging adulthood worse than men. They were more dissatisfied with respect to their romantic appeal, their social acceptance ?in adolescence-, and their creativity ?in emerging adulthood. Women scored lower than men in global self-esteem.