...Hoffman, L. D. Borders, J. A. Hattie, 2000). The hypothesized relationship between gender self-acceptance and subjective well-being, measured by the Short Happiness and Affect Research Protocol (M. J. Stones et al., 1996) was supported most notably among African American men.

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It has been said that the study of psychology and counseling is slowly evolving from a focus on remediating deficits to one that emphasizes strengths (Bandura, 1986; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Certainly, icons of humanistic psychology, such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, stressed the importance of facilitating clients' inherent tendencies toward growth and the emergence of personal potential. In recent years, the positive psychology movement (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), with its emphasis on human strengths, resilience, and happiness, has garnered much attention, both generally and in scholarly circles. Positive psychology clearly has its roots in humanistic psychology, although its founders appear to downplay that important connection (Das, 2000).

A central concept of the humanistic and positive psychology literature is subjective well-being (SWB; Diener, 1984, 1994, 1996, 2000; Diener & Suh, 1998; Suh, Diener, Oishi, & Triandis, 1998). The purpose of the study described in this article was to investigate the relationship between gender self-confidence (Hoffman, 1996; Hoffman, 2006; Hoffman, Borders, & Hattie, 2000) and SWB. Each of these constructs is described in the sections that follow.

SWB

For 3 decades, Edward Diener (2000) has studied a construct known as SWB. SWB has been defined as "people's cognitive and affective evaluations of their lives" (Diener, 2000, p. 34). Diener's work was featured in a special issue of the American Psychologist on positive psychology, guest edited by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000). They noted that "subjective wellbeing is a more scientific sounding term for what people usually mean by happiness" (p. 9), although the terms are used interchangeably in the literature. Research on SWB focuses on how and why individuals experience their lives in positive ways. In studying SWB, much importance is placed on what people think and feel about their own lives. By no means, however, has Diener suggested that SWB alone ensures mental health. What he has contended is that people's own assessments of their lives must be honored. Not to do so, particularly in democratic societies based on respect for the opinions of individuals, would be incongruous.

A strength of many of the studies on SWB conducted by Diener and his associates is a cross-cultural emphasis. The sample in a study conducted by Suh et al. (1998) consisted of 7,204 respondents in 42 countries. Only 6% of the total number of respondents rated money as more important than happiness, and, on a scale of I to 7 (1 = of no importance, 7 = extraordinarily important and valuable), 69% rated happiness as a 7.

SWB has been studied extensively in relationship to various life events and personality traits (Headey & Wearing, 1989). SWB is generally consistent across ages and age of respondent (Diener & Suh, 1998; Herzog & Rodgers, 1981; Horley & Lavery, 1995). Differences in SWB between men and women are small or nonexistent (Inglehart, 1990; Michalos, 1991); however, a literature search revealed no studies that explored the relationship of aspects of an individual's perception of self as a woman or a man to SWB.

GENDER SELF-CONFIDENCE, GENDER SELF-DEFINITION, AND GENDER SELF-ACCEPTANCE: CONSTRUCTS FOR EXPLORATION OF GENDER

My colleagues and I (Hoffman, 1996; Hoffman et al., 2000) proposed a model for conceptualizing masculinity and femininity that focused on an individual's perception of self as a gendered being. A construct called "gender self-confidence," first identified by Lewin (1984), provided the basis for her theory. I examined women's and men's gender self-confidence separately.

Gender Self-Confidence

Gender self-confidence is defined as the intensity of an individual's belief that he meets his personal standards for masculinity (maleness) or that she meets her personal standards for femininity (femaleness; Hoffman et al., 2000). It refers to an individual's genuine self-assuredness about being female or male. This definition is based on Lewin's (1984) reasoning that measures of femininity and masculinity should assess individuals' beliefs about their competence as females and males, beliefs which she contended are derived from personal and individual, rather than stereotypical and popular, perceptions of femininity and masculinity. Spence's (1985, 1999) conceptualization of masculinity and femininity as an individual's sense...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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