College Students' Gender Role And Relationship

Relational aggression is a relationship-based victimization. It tends to result in aseries of social-psychological adjustment problems in the attacker and the attackedwhich are highly concealed and easily overlooked. The concept of relationalaggression was put forward based on studies on gender difference in aggressionbehaviors.In overseas countries, lots of studies have shown that acts of relationalaggression are more common among women than men, while other studies haveshown that there are no gender differences in the development of relational aggressionor even more men than women exhibit relational aggression.The existing overseas studies on gender differences in relational aggression haveno consistent conclusions and the objects are mainly children and adolescents. Whilein China, such studies are barely seen. Therefore, it is necessary to explore thedifferences in relational aggression behaviors in college students from the perspectiveof genders.This article is designed to study the relationship between gender difference andrelational aggression behaviors among college students by using RelationalAggression Scale, Bem Sex Role Inventory and cross-sectional study method. Theobjects of study are809students of1-4grades from a college, including478boys and331girls.The study shows that:1. There are significant differences in college students’ types of gender role,androgynous and undifferentiated being the main types. From high to low, they areandrogynous, undifferentiated, feminine, and masculine. College students’ gender roletypes vary in different genders and specialties. In the percentage of masculine andandrogyny, male students are obviously higher than the female students; while thefeminization percentage of female students is much higher than that of the malestudents. Male students who study liberal arts are more feminine than those who study science and engineering. And the latter are more androgynous than the former.2. There is no gender difference in relational aggression behaviors among collegestudents. The relational aggression behaviors of college students vary significantly ingrades and in different specialties. There are more relational aggression behaviorsamong senior students than students of the rest grades. Relational aggressionbehaviors remain on the same level for freshmen, sophomores and juniors. There aremore relational aggression behaviors among students who study liberal arts than thosewho study science and engineering.3. The relational aggression behaviors of college students are related to genderstypes. College students with higher level of relational aggression tend to be morefeminine in terms of gender role types. Related analysis report indicates that the morefeminine of an individual is, the higher of his or her relational aggression level is, andthe less masculine, the lower of the relational aggression level. Regression analysisshows that the feminine score of an individual can predict relational aggressionsignificantly, while the masculine score of an individual can not.The research on College Students’ gender roles and relational aggressivebehavior shows that the degree of individual feminization can predict relationalaggression significantly and positively. The research provides evidence for enrichingresearch data in this field. Besides, it offers new results for the study of genderdifferences for relational aggression. It not only helps to deepen the understanding ofrelational aggressive behavior and the relationship between the gender roles of collegestudents, but also provides some enlightenment for future research. It also givestheoretical support as well as data support in terms of the effective intervention ofrelational aggressive behavior in educational practice. Prediction mechanisms andmeasuring means of aggressive behavior can be established according to the genderrole to intervene effectively the relationships aggressive behavior of students fromdifferent grades and different majors.