One of the findings in this article is that older adults are more communally oriented than young adults, so these are not simply sex-based traits: "the reduction in agency-related attributes with age was mostly due to a smaller number of negative agency words (e.g., angry, arrogant, aggressive, cynical, vindictive). In contrast, positive agency words (e.g., confident, creative, determined, forceful, self-reliant) were included with the same frequency across age groups." People seems to get nicer/more focused on "others" as they get older, and it's both sexes.
These definitions are from Appendix A:
Appendix A: Definition of agency and communion for rater trainingAccording to the psychologist David Bakan (1966), agency and communion are two fundamental modalities that human beings display in their orientation toward the world around them. In the following, we are providing prototypical definitions of both terms. You need to use these definitions when you rate the attributes in study participants’ self-portrait displays. Please note that agency and communion can be expressed in a positive and a negative form.
AgencyAgency refers to a person’s striving to be separate from others, to master the environment, and to assert, protect, and expand the self. Individuals who score high on agency are usually powerful and autonomous “agents,” they are highly individualistic, they like to dominate and lead, they want to be a force to be reckoned with. In its positive form, high agency orientation is found in skillful leaders who enjoy challenging tasks, are ambitious, self-confident and creative, and can lead a project to success—even in the face of obstacles. In its negative form, high agency orientation is expressed by “hunger for power and dominance” and is often expressed by reckless, abrasive, and selfish/self-centred behaviour toward others.
CommunionCommunion refers to a person’s striving to lose his or her own individuality by merging with others. Individuals who score high on communion enjoy participating in something that is larger than the self. They enjoy relating to other persons in warm, close, intimate, and loving ways. In its positive form, high communion orientation is found in persons who can easily give up or delay their individual needs and wishes for the common good. They are usually great team players and can collaborate with others smoothly and in constructive ways. Also, they are usually good in understanding others’ feelings and are able to respond with empathy and thoughtful understanding. In its negative form, high communion orientation is found in persons who always want to please others and are extremely dependent on the approval and opinion of others. These individuals are devastated if their needs for “union and merging with others” are not reciprocated by these others and they feel rejected and worthless. These individuals, in general, have given up any kind of sense of individuality and self-worth.
In Appendices B and C are lists of words that you can consult in rating the descriptors in study participants’ self-portrait diagrams. Although this list is not exhaustive, it contains the most frequent agency and communion words that we were able to identify in the relevant literature.
I would argue that men are socialized to be more agentic and women are socialized to be more communal (and I also acknowledge that hormonal and brain-wiring also create a tendency toward one or the other).
Int J Behav Dev. 2004; 28: 1–15. doi: 10.1080/01650250344000226.This study investigated agency and communion attributes in adults’ spontaneous self-representations. The study sample consisted of 158 adults (80 men, 78 women) ranging in age from 20 to 88 years. Consistent with theorising, significant age and sex differences were found in terms of the number of agency and communion attributes. Young and middle-aged adults included significantly more agency attributes in their self-representations than older adults; men listed significantly more agency attributes than women. In contrast, older adults included significantly more communion attributes in their self-representations than young adults, and women listed significantly more communion attributes than men. Significant Age Group × Self-Portrait Display and Sex × Self-Portrait Display interactions were found for communion attributes, indicating that the importance of communion attributes differed across age groups and by sex. Correlational analyses showed significant associations of agency and communion attributes with personality traits and defence mechanisms. Communion attributes also showed significant correlations with four dimensions of psychological well-being.
Agency and communion as basic behavioural orientationsThe concepts of agency and communion are frequently used to describe two basic styles of how individuals relate to their social world (Bakan, 1966; Guisinger & Blatt, 1994; McAdams, 1993). This study examined the implicit expression of agency and communion orientations in adults’ spontaneous self-representations. Specifically, this study had four objectives. First, we examined to what extent adults’ spontaneous self-representations could be categorised in terms of agency- and communion-related attributes. The second objective focused on the examination of age and sex differences in adults’ agency and communion orientations. Third, we examined the associations between adults’ agency- and communion-related attributes and other measures of personality and several dimensions of psychological well-being. Finally, the fourth objective examined the hypothesis that the expression of agency and communion attributes differs across age groups and by sex. Specifically, we examined whether age differences in the ratio between agency and communion attributes are different for women than for men.Bakan (1966) proposed agency and communion as two fundamental modalities of human existence. Agency refers to an individual’s striving to master the environment, to assert the self, to experience competence, achievement, and power. In contrast, communion refers to a person’s desire to closely relate to and cooperate and merge with others (Bakan, 1966). Agency-oriented individuals experience fulfilment through their individual accomplishments and their sense of independence and separateness, whereas communion-oriented individuals experience fulfilment through their relationships with others and their sense of belonging (Guisinger & Blatt, 1994; McAdams, 1993).Individuals’ agency and communion orientations have been related to a number of different psychological processes, including styles of reasoning, social status evaluations, personality traits, sex-role socialisation, and self-concept. For example, Woike (1994) showed in two studies that agency was associated with a differentiating style of thinking, whereas communion was associated with an integrating style of thinking. Subsequently, Woike, Gershkovich, Piorkowski, and Polo (1999) showed that agentic individuals structured their autobiographical memories using differentiation, whereas communal individuals structured their autobiographical memories in an integrating way.Other researchers have pointed out that agentic and communal orientations are also expressed in individuals’ cognitive and moral reasoning (e.g., Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Gilligan, 1982) and in social perception and group behaviour (e.g., Conway, Pizzamiglio, & Mount, 1996). Belenky et al., for example, described two distinct forms of knowing that depend on the person’s relationship to social objects. Specifically, separate knowing is a form of knowing in which the person distances him or herself from the social object through critical thinking and application of the rules of logic. In contrast, connected knowing refers to a style of understanding and knowing in which the person creates a connection to the social object by acknowledging perceiver-object similarities and taking into account the perspectives of the social object (see also Labouvie-Vief, 1994). Finally, Conway et al. showed in a series of experiments that agency and communion orientations are pervasive in persons’ social perceptions (e.g., perceptions of social status) and in the attribution of personality characteristics to high- and low-status individuals.Agency and communion are also viewed as basic dimensions of personality (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Wiggins, 1991). Specifically, the development of a strong and independent self and the ability to relate in meaningful ways to others are central concerns of all major personality theories (Guisinger & Blatt, 1994; McAdams, 2000). For example, Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) proposed a model of self and a model of others as the two basic dimensions of Bowlby’s (1988) internal working model of attachment relations. Several studies have shown that these two dimensions parsimoniously describe adults’ attachment styles (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Diehl, Elnick, Bourbeau, & Labouvie-Vief, 1998) and that they relate in meaningful ways to personality traits (Diehl et al., 1998; Shaver & Brennan, 1992). Moreover, trait theorists have acknowledged agency and communion as fundamental coordinates of personality (Wiggins, 1991), and most trait theories incorporate personality factors that are indicative of agency (e.g., dominance, independence, masculinity) or communion (e.g., extraversion, sociability, femininity; see Wiggins & Trapnell, 1996).Agency and communion have also been strongly associated with sex-role socialisation (Bakan, 1966; Cross & Madson, 1997; Helgeson, 1994) and with self-concept formation (Cross & Madson, 1997; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Helgeson (1994) reviewed the literature on sex-role socialisation and found consistent evidence that men are primarily socialised to be independent, self-sufficient, achievement oriented, adventurous, and risk taking, whereas women are primarily socialised to be nurturing, sensitive, relationship oriented, and help-seeking (see also Cross & Madson, 1997). These characteristics and associated behaviours define the masculine and feminine sex role in many cultures and are traditionally assessed with measures of masculinity and femininity, such as the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1981) or the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ; Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1974).Helgeson (1994) also reviewed a large body of research showing that agency/masculinity and communion/femininity tend to be associated with different physical and mental health problems. For example, men show higher rates of externalising disorders (e.g., antisocial behaviour, substance abuse problems) and higher rates of mortality, whereas women show higher rates of internalising disorders (e.g., depression, neuroses) and higher rates of morbidity (see also Feingold, 1994; Gjerde, 1995; Helgeson, 1994; Nolen-Hoeksema, Larson, & Grayson, 1999; Verbrugge, 1985). This evidence is consistent with findings showing significant sex differences in adults’ coping strategies and defence mechanisms (Diehl, Coyle, & Labouvie-Vief, 1996). Moreover, research has shown that men and women react differently to agency and communion stressors (Smith, Gallo, Goble, Ngu, & Stark, 1998) and that extreme forms of agency and communion, defined as unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion, are related to different physical and mental health problems in men and women (Helgeson & Fritz, 1999, 2000).In summary, agency and communion are fundamental modalities of human behaviour that influence individuals’ styles of reasoning, their social relationships, personality, and self-concept. Thus, the first objective of the study examined whether adults’ spontaneous self-representations could be categorised in terms of agency and communion. Furthermore, because agency and communion are closely associated with sex-role socialisation, we examined whether agency and communion attributes were differently represented in men’s and women’s self-representations.Traditional views of personality development have put a primary emphasis on agency, individuation, and independence as the hallmark of healthy personality development (Franz & White, 1985). For example, Freud’s (1905/1953) and Erikson’s (1950) stage theories include separation and autonomy as an important step in personality development (Guisinger & Blatt, 1994; Labouvie-Vief, 1994). Moreover, being independent-minded and autonomous in one’s social-emotional reasoning has been defined as a high level of ego development (Loevinger, 1976).Although agency and independence are valuable goals of individual development, some theorists have argued that being both independent and able to relate in fulfilling ways to others constitutes a more advanced level of development (Blatt & Blass, 1996; Gilligan, 1982; Guisinger & Blatt, 1994). Blatt and Blass, for example, advocate that healthy and mature personality development includes both the development of stable, enduring, and mutually satisfying relationships with others and the development of a differentiated, stable, realistic, and integrated self-concept. Indeed, recent theories of human motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000), personality development (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Blatt & Blass, 1996), and psychological well-being suggest that autonomy and self-acceptance as well as positive relations with others are essential components of a comprehensive conceptualisation of positive psychological health (Ryff & Singer, 1998).Some theorists (e.g., Gutmann, 1994; Jung, 1933/1962; Labouvie-Vief, 1994) have also suggested that with increasing age and maturation the dialectic tension between agency/individuation and communion/relatedness may change, resulting in a more balanced relationship between the two orientations and perhaps a more androgynous and overall more communal orientation. In particular, Gutmann (1994) suggested that with increasing age men incorporate more feminine characteristics into their behaviour, whereas women show an increasing shift toward masculine behaviours. Although empirical evidence for this suggestion is limited, several studies have reported findings that are consistent with this proposition. Helson and Moane (1987) and Haan (1977), for example, reported longitudinal findings showing that women who changed in a positive way during early and middle adulthood showed increases in agency-related behaviours (e.g., independence, social assertiveness) and simultaneous decreases in communion-related behaviours (e.g., femininity). In a complementary fashion, Haan (1977), Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson, and McKee (1978), and Livson (1981) reported findings for male samples showing that positive changes during the middle years often involved the re-evaluation of agentic/masculine behaviours and goals and the adoption of more communal/feminine behaviours such as nurturance and self-exploration. Other studies, however, have failed to provide similar support and suggest that overall adults may become more communal as they age (Diehl et al., 1996). Although the exact reasons are mostly unexplored, theorists like Labouvie-Vief (1994) seem to suggest that an age-related decline in agentic cognitive abilities may be responsible for the increased communal orientation in older men and women.Agency and communion and the balance between the two orientations have also been studied in the context of generativity (Ackerman, Zuroff, & Moskowitz, 2000; MacDermid, Franz, & DeReus, 1998), because theories of generativity (Erikson, 1950, 1982; McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992) suggest that agentic and communal motives are essential for generative behaviour. Thus, from a life-span developmental perspective it is of interest to examine whether older adults show a greater balance between agency and communion than young adults. The present study investigated this question and tested whether there were sex-specific age differences in the ratio between agency- and communion-related attributes. In a cross-sectional study such as the present one, sex-specific age differences in the ratio between agency- and communion-related attributes should result in a significant Age Group × Sex interaction.
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