PREFERENCE FOR COMMUNAL OR AGENTIC TRAITS IN PARTNERS AND CHILDREN

Abstract

People’s preference for communal or agentic traits in their future partners and future children and the connection to the self-extension model will be explored. Four-hundred-and-fifty undergraduate heterosexual students were asked about their own preferences for communal and agentic traits in future partners, sons, and daughters. The participants also rated the expected level of self-extension toward these future family members, and their own levels of agency and communion. The results show that men prefer more agentic sons and daughters compared to partners, and more communal partners than sons. Women preferred more agentic sons compared to partners. Self-extension acts as a partial mediator, where the more both men and women self-extended to their future children, the more agentic they wanted them to be compared to their partners. Implications of the results for future research will be discussed.