Gender Differences in Fear of Rejection, Self-Compassion and Social Withdrawal among Young with Paternal Substance Use

Abstract

The present study examined the gender differences in fear of rejection, self-compassion, and social withdrawal among young adults with paternal substance use. Data were gathered from 200 young adults, who had a history of substance use by their fathers. Purposive sampling was used to choose participants from both public and private universities. To examine hypothesis, an independent-samples t-test was used to compare male and female participants across the three study variables. The findings showed that the differences between males and females were not statistically significant for any of the variables. For fear of rejection, males (M = 58.99, SD = 17.07) scored slightly lower than females (M = 60.21, SD = 14.11), but the difference was not significant, t = −0.554, p = .580. Similarly, females reported slightly higher self-compassion (M = 36.89, SD = 5.01) than males (M = 35.53, SD = 5.59); however, this difference was also not significant, t = −1.801, p = .073. In terms of social withdrawal, females had a somewhat higher mean score (M = 11.86, SD = 3.23) than males (M = 11.02, SD = 3.96), but the difference was again not significant, t = −1.648, p = .101. Overall, females had slightly higher scores on all three variables, but none of the differences reached the significance level of p < .05. Therefore, the hypothesis suggesting significant gender differences was not supported in the present sample.