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Abstract

A rationale, based on Ausubel's developmental theory, was given for predicting that feminists would tend to be dominated by independence needs and nonfeminists by affiliation needs. By means of an inventory based on controversial issues espoused by the feminist movement, 39 university women were identified as feminists and 39 as nonfeminists. These subjects were administered a battery of four personality tests, from which 10 scales related to independence and 10 related to affiliation were chosen as predictor variables. Discriminant function analysis applied to these 20 measures produced a prediction equation in which nearly all of the independence and affiliation scores were weighted with opposite signs. The equation classified correctly 92% of the feminist subjects and 95% of the nonfeminists. These results were interpreted as confirming the expectation that feminists and nonfeminists can be differentiated on the basis of their independence and affiliation needs.

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Feminists and Nonfeminists: Contrasting Profiles in Independence and Affiliation

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