The supermom trap

Do involved dads erode moms' self-competence

Bibliographic Data

ID19005683
AuthorsTakayuki Sasaki (0000-0002-0452-8211, Osaka University of Commerce, corresponding author), Nancy L Hazen, Nancy Hazen (0000-0003-1824-3150, The University of Texas at Austin), William B Swann (0000-0002-8698-2994, Osaka University of Commerce), William B Swann Jr
Year2010
Volume17
Issue1
Pages71-79
Publication date2010-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePersonal Relationships (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-4126 • E-ISSN: 1475-6811
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1475-6811.2010.01253.x
OpenAlexW2128120302
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited11

Increasingly, husbands have been expected to share equally in the task of childrearing, especially when their wives are employed. This study examined reactions to these changes in a sample of 78 dual-earner couples with 8-month-old infants. When wives felt that their husbands were skillful caregivers, greater husbands' contribution to caregiving was associated with lower self-competence among wives. In contrast, wives' caregiving behavior was unrelated to their husbands' self-competence. None of these effects emerged for the self-liking component of self-esteem. Thus, despite increasingly egalitarian sex roles, employed mothers (but not their husbands) seem to be trapped between their desire for help with childrearing and the threat to their personal competence posed by failure to meet socially constructed ideals of motherhood

Developmental psychology · Political science · Social change · Social competence · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Psychology · Social Psychology

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