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Related Experiment Videos

Gender differences in self-esteem: a meta-analysis.

K C Kling1, J S Hyde, C J Showers

  • 1Psychology Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison 53706, USA. klin0186@tc.umn.edu

Psychological Bulletin
|July 22, 1999
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Men report slightly higher global self-esteem than women, with this small difference most pronounced in late adolescence. This finding was consistent across two large-scale analyses examining gender and self-perception.

Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Sociology
  • Developmental Psychology

Background:

  • Global self-esteem is a crucial aspect of psychological well-being.
  • Understanding gender differences in self-esteem is important for developmental and social psychology.
  • Previous research has yielded mixed results regarding gender disparities in self-esteem.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To systematically examine gender differences in global self-esteem.
  • To identify age-related patterns in gender differences in self-esteem.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis I: Conducted a meta-analysis of 216 effect sizes from studies involving 97,121 participants.
  • Analysis II: Utilized three large, nationally representative datasets from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), summarizing data from approximately 48,000 young Americans.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • A small overall effect size (d = 0.21) indicated higher male global self-esteem.
  • A significant quadratic effect of age showed the largest gender difference in late adolescence (d = 0.33).
  • NCES data corroborated these findings, with effect sizes ranging from 0.04 to 0.24 favoring males.

Conclusions:

  • Males consistently score higher on global self-esteem measures than females, though the difference is small.
  • The magnitude of this gender difference in self-esteem varies with age, peaking in adolescence.
  • The study discusses potential explanations for the small, yet consistent, observed gender effect size in self-esteem.