The Study Of Personality Characteristics Of Tough Ladies And The Development Of Their Independence

Starting in 2013,a word "tough lady" has been prevalent in China.It has also raised public attention and thinking on the sex role of modern female.This paper tries to explore it from the aspect of social psychology.The first study investigates personality traits of tough ladies and gets the classification of sex role from the public view by collecting and analyzing 475 data from self-designed open questionnaire and newly edited CSRI-50.The result shows that(1)the most prominent traits of tough lady is independence;(2)the other two prominent traits are brave and open-minded in male sub-scale apart from the independence and the most outstanding traits in female sub-scale are caring,sympathetic and considerate;(3)according to the gender criteria proposed by Bern,two scores of tough ladies in both male sub-scale and female sub-scale are higher than the average value,which identifies that tough ladies belong to androgyny role.(4)people from varied gender,educational background and marital status share similar opinions.Based on this empirical research,it shows that the phenomenon of tough ladies is the reflection of their outstanding independence.But the meaning of independence is not completely consistent with the independent trait,and whether this kind of anti-gender stereotype may bring conficts to tough ladies is a researchable question.So,the second study focuses on exploring how tough ladies perceive and develop their independence and potential related influence factors.8 cases with high educational background are interviewed in qualitative research.They are accessed and self-accessed in high scores as tough ladies.The data coming from ninety thousand-word transcription and other non-verbal information are analyzed according to self-dialogue theory,self-negotiate theory and model for the path of multi-level development for the self.The result shows that(1)although there exist individual indifferences about the development of tough ladies’ independence,8 cases have made the transition from binary opposition that being independent is opposite to relying on others to a more integrated and flexible situation,from being forced to be independent to achieving the conformity of cognition,emotion and behaviors,and harmony between subject and the relationship in the process of developing their independence gradually.(2)there are four different types of"moment of innovation" in the process of developing independence:emotional orientation,opportunity orientation,event orientation and other people orientation.This study proposes that interpersonal independence is a reachable and ideal situation when females face the contradictory expectation that is to be both independent and dependent from themselves and the society by referring to the concept about self-supporting personality trait proposed by Lingxiang Xia and Xiting Huang and the dual autonomy theory raised by Guanghui Ye.This kind of view has the certain theoretical significance and practical value.