Friendships, femininity, and reaction to affective arousal

This study examined relations between college women's scores on femininity and their same-sex friendships and how these women's perceptions were influenced by induction of success or failure. 200 undergraduate women described themselves and their best friends on the dominance and submissiveness scales of the Interpersonal Adjective Scales and also completed the Behavioral Self-report of Femininity and a biographical information sheet. Mean ratings of dominance were above average both for self and best-friend ratings, but these two dominance ratings were not significantly correlated. However, women viewed themselves as similar to their best friends on submissiveness characteristics. Highly feminine women described themselves as more dominant than less feminine women. Highly feminine women also experienced less anxiety and fatigue as measured by the Profile of Mood States in response to failure induction than less feminine women. Both sets of results are contrary to expectations, but the behavioral definition of femininity was different from that used earlier.