Personal Relationships, 17 (2010), 71–79. Printed in the United States of America.
Copyright © 2010 IARR
The supermom trap: Do involved dads erode
moms’ self-competence?
TAKAYUKI SASAKI,a
NANCY L. HAZEN,b
AND WILLIAM B. SWANN JR.b
a
Osaka University of Commerce and b
University of Texas at Austin
Abstract
Increasingly, husbands have been expected to share equally in the task of childrearing, especially when their wives
are employed. This study examined reactions to these changes in a sample of 78 dual-earner couples with
8-month-old infants. When wives felt that their husbands were skillful caregivers, greater husbands’ contribution to
caregiving was associated with lower self-competence among wives. In contrast, wives’ caregiving behavior was
unrelated to their husbands’ self-competence. None of these effects emerged for the self-liking component of
self-esteem. Thus, despite increasingly egalitarian sex roles, employed mothers (but not their husbands) seem to be
trapped between their desire for help with childrearing and the threat to their personal competence posed by failure
to meet socially constructed ideals of motherhood.
The women’s liberation movement ushered
in a new egalitarianism wherein women of
all stripes were encouraged to join the workforce.
Husbands of these women have been
expected to share in the task of childrearing. A
corollary, albeit unstated, assumption was that
employed mothers would welcome fathers’
involvement in caregiving, as this would
enable them to devote much needed time to
their careers. The research reported in this
article represents a partial test of this corollary
assumption. In particular, recognizing
that child care is an important source of selfcompetence
for mothers, we ask if sharing
child care duties with fathers might decrease
mothers’ feelings of self-competence. We set
Takayuki Sasaki, JGSS Research Center, Osaka University
of Commerce, Japan; Nancy L. Hazen and William
B. Swann Jr., University of Texas, Austin.
This article was based on Takayuki Sasaki’s master’s
thesis. This research was supported by Grant SBR-
9212990 from the National Science Foundation and Grant
3332 from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.
We are grateful to the families who participated in this
study.
Correspondence should be addressed to Takayuki
Sasaki, JGSS Research Center, Osaka University of
Commerce, 4-1-10 Mikuriya-sakaemachi, Higashi-osaka,
577-8505, Japan, e-mail: taksasaki@gmail.com.
the stage for our analysis by describing recent
changes in patterns of childrearing.
Changes in the childrearing landscape
Today it is not unusual for mothers to enter
the paid labor force before they celebrate their
baby’s first birthday. The labor force participation
rates among married mothers of infants
aged 1 year or younger in two-parent families
became a record-high 61.8% in 1998, doubled
from 30.8% in 1975, and fell slightly to
55.8% in 2005 (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1999,
2006). This dramatic burgeoning of maternal
employment has not only changed the childrearing
landscape but also called for a rapid
modification of the father’s parenting role.
But if the movement of mothers into the
workforce has been dramatic, the movement
of fathers into the nursery has not. Even
when mothers hold a paying job, fathers still
spend far less time than mothers doing housework
and child care (Bianchi, Robinson, &
Milkie, 2006). Surprisingly, dual-earner mothers
seem ambivalent about their husbands’
involvement. Indeed, employed mothers were
less likely to be satisfied with child care
arrangements when their husbands were a
major source of child care (Glass, 1998).
We were interested in the roots of such
ambivalence.
71
72 T. Sasaki, N. L. Hazen, and W. B. Swann
Roots of ambivalence among employed
mothers
Eagly’s (e.g., Diekman & Eagly, 2008; Eagly
& Karau, 2002) role congruity theory may
help explain why women seem ambivalent
about their husbands’ involvement in child
care. Eagly and colleagues note that individuals
are motivated to align their behavior
with the societal, interpersonal, and personal
demands of roles, and a failure to fulfill
the role expectations would result in both
intrapersonal (e.g., negative affect) and interpersonal
(e.g., ridicule from others) consequences.
For instance, socially constructed
concepts of motherhood portray mothers as
devoted to the care of others and selfsacrificing
for others’ sake (Arendell, 2000).
As a result, women are still expected to be
primary caregivers, an expectation that they
fulfill behaviorally by assuming most of the
responsibility for child care (Bianchi et al.,
2006). The question that we address here is
what happens when couples fail to fulfill these
social expectations such that husbands skillfully
perform child care while wives work
outside the home.
Although past researchers have not examined
the impact of child care arrangement
on self-esteem, there is evidence linking failure
to engage in gender-normative behaviors
to self-esteem losses (Guerrero Witt &
Wood, 2008; Josephs, Markus, & Tafarodi,
1992). However, the links between childrearing
arrangements and self-esteem may
represent a special case. That is, when fathers
skillfully assume the role of caregivers, they
may threaten mothers’ feelings of competence
but leave their feelings of being loved intact.
Understanding how this pattern might emerge
requires an appreciation of the distinction
between the self-competence and self-liking
components of self-esteem.
Two dimensions of self-esteem
Based on the assumption that agency and
communion represent universal dimensions
that underlie much of human behavior and
thought (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007), selfesteem
researchers have identified two components
of global self-esteem that correspond
to agency and communion (e.g., Franks &
Marolla, 1976; Gecas, 1971). Tafarodi and
Swann (1995) labeled these components selfcompetence—an
evaluation of one’s ability
to bring about desired outcomes—and
self-liking—an evaluation of one’s goodness,
worth, and lovability. Supporting this distinction,
research indicates that self-competence
and self-liking predict unique outcomes (e.g.,
Bosson & Swann, 1999; Tafarodi & Milne,
2002).
It is easy to imagine how child care
arrangements could influence women’s selfcompetence
but leave their self-liking intact.
That is, if wives view their husbands as
skillful caregivers, the longer the husbands
spend as exclusive caregivers, the less agentic
the women may feel. Because caregiving
may be so central to many mothers’ feelings
of self-worth, perceived deficits in this
arena should actually degrade their feelings
of self-competence. Furthermore, insofar as
women believe that they are responsible for
caregiving, there may be nothing they can
do to compensate for handing over caregiver
responsibilities to their husbands. If so, then
women’s own child care hours and their husbands’
perceptions of their parenting skills
may fail to insulate women’s self-competence
against the threat posed by displays of competent
caregiving by fathers. At the same time,
women feel that their husbands’ contributions
to caregiving are a sign of their love and
devotion, so such activities may reaffirm their
self-liking.
To test this reasoning, we asked both members
of couples to complete measures of
child care arrangements and two components
of self-esteem. In addition, videotaped
discussions between spouses about parenting
were coded to assess their perceptions
of partners’ parenting skills. As established
in past research (Bianchi et al., 2006), we
expected that mothers would report longer
hours in child care than fathers. More importantly,
we expected that the more time
husbands spend caregiving, the lower wives’
self-competence (but not self-liking) should
fall when wives perceived the caregiving of
competent husbands as a self-esteem threat.
The supermom trap 73
Furthermore, we expected that this relationship
would prevail even when controlling
for wives’ own child care hours and their
husbands’ feedback on the wives’ parenting.
Finally, if expectations regarding fathers’
caregiving roles are indeed less rigidly defined
by society, neither child care arrangements
nor perceptions of spouses’ parenting should
be associated with fathers’ self-esteem.
Method
Participants
Couples (N = 78) were recruited through
birthing classes, public service radio announcements,
and fliers distributed at maternity
stores in a large Southwestern city. In
return for their participation in the study, couples
were offered a $50 savings bond for
their child. Only English-speaking, cohabitating
couples in the third trimester of pregnancy
with their first child participated. Couples
identified themselves as employed and
well educated (51.3% of fathers and 65.4%
of mothers had a bachelor degree or more).
The average working hours per week were
44 and 35, husbands and wives, respectively.
The most commonly reported total
family income category was over $60,000
(30.8%), although 19.2% of families’ income
was below $30,000. The mean age for mothers
was 30.4, with ages ranging from 17 to 42,
and the mean age for fathers was 32.5, with
ages ranging from 20 to 51. Most participants
were Caucasian (85.9% of fathers, 83.3% of
mothers) or Hispanic (10.3% of fathers, 7.7%
of mothers).
Procedure
All families were visited in their homes.
While one parent was observed interacting
with the child, the other parent completed selfreport
questionnaires, including a measure of
self-esteem. A child care arrangement questionnaire
was completed jointly and mailed
in. Couples were then interviewed concerning
their perceptions of their partners’ parenting
skills.
Measures
Self-esteem
Both wives and husbands individually completed
20 items from Tafarodi and Swann’s
(1995) Self-Liking/Self-Competence Scale
(SLCS). The SLCS measures two distinctive
dimensions of global self-esteem. Selfliking
is the degree to which individuals
approve of themselves relative to others, or
their sense of social worth. Self-competence
assesses the degree to which individuals feel
capable of and effective in accomplishing
their desired goals. On scales ranging from 1
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), people
responded to items such as “I like myself”
and “I feel worthless at times” for the selfliking
component, and “I am a capable person”
and “I deal poorly with challenges” for
the self-competence component. The items
were summed after reverse coding negatively
worded items (self-liking αs = .89 for mothers
and .94 for fathers; self-competence αs =
.80 and .90, respectively).
Hours spent in child care
The parents jointly completed a chart covering
a typical week by identifying the hours the
child spent each day from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
with the mother only, the father only, with
the mother and the father together, and in
nonparental child care, as well as each parents’
work hours. The index of solo child care
reflected the number of hours per week parents
spent with their infant by themselves.
Perceptions of spouses’ parenting
During the home visit, parents were asked to
talk about their spouses’ strengths and weaknesses
as a parent. Five trained coders rated
the videotaped conversations using 7-point
scales that assessed how parents perceived
their spouses’ parenting in four domains:
emotional engagement, physical involvement,
responsibility, and overall parenting skills.
High scores on emotional engagement reflect
spontaneous displays of verbal and physical
affection, for example, kissing and hugging
the baby, coming back home as soon as possible,
and saying “I love you.” High scores
74 T. Sasaki, N. L. Hazen, and W. B. Swann
on physical involvement reflect the degree to
which one believes one’s spouse is capable
of conducting instrumental caregiving, such
as feeding and diaper changing. High scores
on responsibility reflect how well one believes
one’s partner handles situation in which parent’s
intervention is necessary in terms of
socialization and safety. High scores on overall
parenting skills reflect an overall opinion
of one’s spouse’s general behavior as a parent.
The sum of scores in the four domains was
used to construct a summary score of spouse’s
parenting skills.
Each domain of parenting was assessed
on the quantity and quality of descriptions
stated by spouses in the videotaped discussion.
Simply identifying what their spouses do
was insufficient to justify giving either low
or high scores in each domain. Instead, the
statements needed to be coherent, believable,
and supported by clear examples to be given
extreme scores. As each discussion was coded
by the same number of randomly assigned
raters, a one-way random effects model of
the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs)
was used to calculate interrater reliability, and
these ratings were reliable for both mothers
(ICC = .77) and fathers (ICC = .75).
Results
Preliminary analyses
Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations
for independent and dependent variables
are presented in Table 1. As expected,
mothers’ solo child care hours per week
were almost 3 times as long (28.7 hr vs.
9.7 hr) as fathers’ solo child care hours per
week, t(73) = 7.80, p < .001, Cohen’s d =
1.31. Husbands’ perceptions of their wives’
parenting skills were higher than wives’ perceptions
of their husbands’ parenting skills,
Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations for independent variables and
dependent variables
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Mother
1. Solo child
care hours
—
2. Perception of
father’s
parenting
−0.09 —
3. Self-
competence
−0.11 −0.02 —
4. Self-liking −0.05 −0.13 0.57∗∗∗
—
Father
5. Solo child
care hours
0.09 −0.16 −0.06 −0.15 —
6. Perception of
mother’s
parenting
0.03 0.69∗∗∗
−.05 −0.02 −0.30∗∗
—
7. Self-
competence
−0.03 0.26∗ 0.12 −0.15 0.15 0.13 —
8. Self-liking −0.02 0.14 0.16 −0.01 −0.02 0.03 0.68∗∗∗ —
M 28.74a 21.18b 42.96c 37.57d 9.71a 23.64b 42.97c 40.39d
SD 19.62 3.71 4.28 6.93 9.49 2.42 5.75 7.38
Note. Paired-sample t tests were conducted to compare means of mothers’ and fathers’ each variable. Results from
mean comparisons with the same superscript were a(t = 7.80***), b(t = −8.07***), c(t = −0.02), d(t = −2.27*).
∗p < .05. ∗∗p < .01. ∗∗∗p < .001.
The supermom trap 75
t(76) = −8.07, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.80.
Although husbands and wives did not differ
on self-competence, t(66) = −0.02, ns,
Cohen’s d = 0.00, husbands were more likely
to report higher self-liking than wives, t(66)
= −2.27, p < .05, Cohen’s d = 0.39. Neither
the self-liking nor self-competence scores
of mothers were correlated with the corresponding
scores of husbands (r = .12 for selfcompetence
and r = −.01 for self-liking).
However, mothers’ perceptions of their husbands’
parenting skills were highly correlated
with fathers’ perceptions of their wives’ parenting
skills (r = .69, p < .001).
Primary analyses
The actor–partner interdependence model
with a multilevel approach (Kenny, Kashy, &
Cook, 2006) was used to derive independent
estimates of each participant’s contribution to
the outcome variables (actor effects) as well as
the contribution of each participant’s spouse
to the outcome variables (partner effects). To
control for interdependency, relationship partners
were nested within the dyad. All of
the predictor variables were centered by each
grand mean prior to analyses, which meant
that intercepts represented self-esteem scores
for the average person regardless of gender.
Also, family income, education, and work
hours were entered as covariates.
To test our hypothesis that skilled husbands’
contribution to child care erodes wives’
self-competence, a cross-product term was
calculated by multiplying a set of centered
predictor variables: actors’ perceptions of
their partners’ parenting and partners’ solo
child care hours. Because we were specifically
interested in whether the two-way
interaction was significant within gender, the
two-intercept model of a multilevel approach
was employed. Moreover, we wished to control
for an alternative hypothesis that an
actor with low self-esteem triggers the partner’s
solo child care hours, particularly when
the partner believes that the actor’s parenting
skills are low. To this end, we entered
another cross-product term between partners’
perceptions of the actors’ parenting and partners’
solo child care hours into the model.
Finally, as suggested by Aiken and West
(1991), simple slopes were plotted using cutoffs
1 SD above and below the mean.
Self-competence
As can be seen in Table 2, both actor effects
and partner effects were associated with mothers’
self-competence. Mothers reported higher
competence when they were working longer
hours (b = 0.13, p < .01) and when their husbands
attained higher education (b = 1.07,
p < .05). Even after the effects of both
actors’ and partners’ demographic characteristics
were taken into account, the expected
interaction between actors’ perceptions of the
partners’ parenting skills and partners’ solo
child care hours for mothers emerged (b =
−0.05, p < .01). Moreover, this interaction
effect prevailed even after controlling for
the interaction term between partners’ perceptions
of the actors’ parenting skills and
partners’ solo child care hours. As displayed
in Figure 1, when mothers perceived fathers’
to be competent caregivers, increased father
solo child care hours were related to lower
self-competence in mothers. In contrast, when
mothers perceived fathers to be relatively
incompetent caregivers, increased father solo
child care hours were unrelated to mothers’
self-competence. Decomposition of the
interaction revealed that mothers with favorable
perceptions of their husbands’ parenting
(b = −0.62, p < .05), and mothers with husbands
who provided longer solo child care
hours (b = −0.17, p < .01) were more likely
to report lower self-competence. At the same
time, mothers’ own solo child care hours and
their husbands’ perceptions of mothers’ parenting
skills were unrelated to mothers’ own
self-competence.
Consistent with our predictions, the interaction
between actors’ perceptions of the partners’
parenting skills and partners’ solo child
care hours was nonsignificant for fathers.
Moreover, none of the main effects were
linked to fathers’ self-competence, including
demographic characteristics. Fathers’ perceptions
of their wives’ parenting skills, their
wives’ perceptions of fathers’ parenting skills,
and the amount of their wives’ and fathers’
76 T. Sasaki, N. L. Hazen, and W. B. Swann
Table 2. Actor and partner effects and interaction effects on self-competence and self-liking
Self-competence Self-liking
B SE B SE
Wife’s family income −0.13 0.50 −1.24 0.94
Actor effects
Wife’s education level 0.75†
0.44 −0.81 0.83
Wife’s work hours 0.13∗∗ 0.04 0.17∗ 0.08
Wife’s perception of husband’s parenting −0.62∗ 0.26 −0.65 0.46
Wife’s solo child care hours 0.02 0.03 0.00 0.05
Partner effects
Husband’s education level 1.07∗ 0.45 2.48∗∗ 0.85
Husband’s work hours −0.01 0.04 0.12 0.08
Husband’s perception of wife’s parenting 0.39 0.32 0.27 0.57
Husband’s solo child care hours −0.17∗∗ 0.06 −0.18† 0.10
Actor–partner interaction effects
Wife’s Perception of Husband’s Parenting −0.05∗∗
0.02 −0.03 0.03
× Husband’s Solo Child Care Hours
Husband’s Perception of Wife’s Parenting 0.02 0.02 −0.02 0.02
× Husband’s Solo Child Care Hours
Husband’s family income −0.24 0.86 −0.90 1.22
Actor effects
Husband’s education level 0.51 0.78 0.45 1.11
Husband’s work hours −0.01 0.07 0.06 0.10
Husband’s perception of wife’s parenting 0.01 0.44 −0.66 0.62
Husband’s solo child care hours 0.05 0.09 −0.05 0.12
Partner effects
Wife’s education level 0.22 0.73 0.84 1.04
Wife’s work hours −0.09 0.07 −0.07 0.10
Wife’s perception of husband’s parenting 0.29 0.34 0.60 0.48
Wife’s solo child care hours −0.04 0.07 −0.11 0.10
Actor–partner interaction effects
Husband’s Perception of Wife’s Parenting 0.02 0.02 0.05 0.03
× Wife’s Solo Child Care Hours
Wife intercept 41.52∗∗∗
0.87 35.24∗∗∗
1.61
Husband intercept 43.95∗∗∗ 1.28 40.90∗∗∗ 1.82
Note. Family income was coded as 1 = $0–$15,000, 2 = $15,001–$30,000, 3 = $30,001–$45,000, 4 =
$45,001–$60,000, and 5 = over $60,001 for family income. Education was coded as 1 = less than grade 12, 2 = high
school diploma or equivalent, 3 = high school plus business or trade school diploma, 4 = 1–4 years of college but
did not graduate, 5 = graduated from college, 6 = postgraduate professional degree.
†p < .10. ∗p < .05. ∗∗p < .01. ∗∗∗p < .001.
own child care hours did not predict fathers’
self-competence.
Self-liking
Mother’s self-liking was associated with their
husbands’ educational level (b = 2.48, p <
.01) and mother’s own working hours (b =
0.17, p < .05). As expected, however, there
was no actor–partner interaction effect between
actors’ perceptions of the partners’ parenting
skills and partners’ solo child care
hours. In addition, mothers’ perceptions of
The supermom trap 77
30
35
40
45
50
Wives who rate their husbands' parenting
competence as low
Wives who rate their husbands' parenting
competence as high
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 (hours)
Husbands’ child care hours
Wives’self-competence
Figure 1. Wives’ self-competence as a function
of the interaction between husbands’
child care hours and wives’ perception of husbands’
parenting skills.
their husbands’ parenting skills, fathers’ perceptions
of their wives’ parenting skills, and
mothers’ solo child care hours were not linked
to mothers’ self-liking component of selfesteem,
although fathers’ solo child care hours
were marginally significant. For fathers’ selfliking,
none of the variables in the model were
significant.
Discussion
Because social ideology compels mothers to
prioritize maternal care of the family and
children above their own wishes (Arendell,
2000), employed mothers may suffer from
self-competence losses when their husbands
are skillful and involved caregivers. Note,
however, that within couple analyses demonstrated
that on average, mothers’ solo child
care hours were 19 hr a week more than
husbands’ solo child care hours, and over
80% of mothers had solo child care hours
equal to or more than their husbands. Consistent
with role congruity theory (e.g., Diekman
& Eagly, 2008; Eagly & Karau, 2002),
mother’s predominant share of child care is
taken for granted in society, regardless of
the mother’s employment status, and women
working outside the home suffer when they
fail to live up to these social expectations.
Our findings contribute to the literature in
three ways. First, the gender specificity of
our findings was striking. Whereas mothers’
self-competence was associated with both the
number of hours they worked outside the
home and child care arrangement, fathers displayed
no such sensitivity to the caregiving
situation. For mothers, employment may
represent a double-edged sword, fostering
a sense of self-competence but simultaneously
eroding self-competence if they perceive
that their husbands are assuming the
caregiver role effectively. This finding may
help explain why mothers perform a much
larger portion of the child care even when they
are employed. Because cultural norms inspire
mothers to be primary caregivers (Arendell,
2000), especially for infants, employed mothers
may feel pressured to do more caregiving
to ensure the survival of their feelings of selfcompetence,
even while they may wish for
fathers’ increased participation to lessen their
burden.
Second, mothers seem to assess child care
role congruity based on their spouse’s caregiving
characteristics, not on their own caregiving
characteristics. Mothers’ self-competence
was independent of how many hours they
spent with their baby or how fervently their
husbands praised their parenting. Rather, it
was their husbands’ child care performance
that was associated with their self-competence.
In particular, the more time their husbands
spent engaged in skillful caregiving, the lower
the self-competence of mothers sank.
Third, the present findings also add to a
growing literature (Bosson & Swann, 1999;
Tafarodi & Milne, 2002) indicating the usefulness
of distinguishing two separate dimensions
of self-esteem. That said, the sources of
self-competence and self-liking are nuanced
and complex. For example, in our sample,
mothers’ self-competence and self-liking were
related to their husbands’ educational attainment
and own weekly work hours, suggesting
that women with high socioeconomic status
who work longer hours are likely to feel that
they are lovable and competent persons. Nevertheless,
because American society covertly
requires women to make an extra effort
to compensate for lost hours with infants
78 T. Sasaki, N. L. Hazen, and W. B. Swann
because of employment, employed women
may feel pressured to do everything perfectly.
We acknowledge several limitations of this
research. Our findings may apply only to
White middle-class parents of infants, making
it important for future researchers to examine
the extent to which findings of this study generalize
to other racial and ethnic groups, as
well as to low-income samples. In addition,
the correlational nature of our design allows
rival interpretations of our findings. Conceivably,
mothers with low self-competence
may overestimate their husbands’ caregiving
skills because they do not feel good about
themselves and therefore cede responsibilities
to their husbands. Alternatively, fathers
may become more involved in child care
when they see their wives are low in selfcompetence,
resulting in better wives’ perceptions
of their husbands’ parenting skills.
These rival explanations, however, cannot
explain two other findings. First, the rival
explanations would predict that wives’ selfliking
would have been associated with their
perceptions of spouses’ caregiving skills, and
it was not. Second, the rival explanations cannot
explain why only mothers who perceived
their husbands to be competent caregivers
suffered low self-competence when their husbands
spent time with their children. In addition,
it is noteworthy that another interaction
term testing the alternative hypothesis that
actors with low self-esteem relinquish caregiving
responsibilities to their partners, and
therefore, the partners underrate the actors’
parenting, was not significant. Nevertheless,
future studies should test such rival explanations
directly by conducting longitudinal
analysis.
Considering the mechanism by which perceptions
of husbands’ child care performance
may undermine women’s self-competence,
future studies should include other sources of
self-esteem. Although the design of the current
study allowed us to have self-esteem predictors
within dyadic relationships (i.e., couples’
caregiving characteristics), antecedents
in larger contexts are likely to influence
individuals’ self-esteem. For instance, availability
of family-friendly policies to couples
with small children, and feedback from social
networks including couples’ parents, siblings,
and friends are likely to impact individuals’
self-esteem.
Future studies should also determine
whether our effects might be moderated by
gender role attitudes. If the current results
are replicated both for mothers who have
egalitarian as well as traditional gender role
attitudes, it would suggest that social attitudes
about gender roles have become more
egalitarian with respect to employment and
career accomplishments but have persisted
with respect to parenting roles. From this
vantage point, recent social changes may
have convinced many Americans that women
should enter the workplace and their husbands
should share the caregiving. Yet, the ideal that
parenting is primarily the wife’s responsibility
has survived. As a result, women may be
trapped by the conviction that a truly competent
woman can and should be a “supermom”
who has a high-powered career yet is nevertheless
always there for her children.
References
Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression:
Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park,
CA: Sage.
Arendell, T. (2000). Conceiving and investigating motherhood:
The decade’s scholarship. Journal of Marriage
and the Family, 62, 1192–1207.
Bianchi, S. M., Robinson, J. P., & Milkie, M. A. (2006).
Changing rhythms of American family life. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bosson, J. K., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1999). Self-liking,
self-competence, and the quest for self-verification.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25,
1230–1241.
Diekman, A. B., & Eagly, A. H. (2008). Of men,
women, and motivation: A role congruity account.
In J. Y. Shah & W. L. Gardner, (Eds.), Handbook of
motivation science (pp. 434–447). New York: Guil-
ford.
Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory
of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological
Review, 109, 573–598.
Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Glick, P. (2007). Universal
dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and
competence. Trends in Cognitive Science, 11, 77–83.
Franks, D. D., & Marolla, J. (1976). Efficacious action
and social approval as interacting dimensions of
self-esteem: A tentative formulation through construct
validation. Sociometry, 39, 324–341.
Gecas, V. (1971). Parental behavior and dimensions of
adolescent self-evaluation. Sociometry, 34, 466–482.
The supermom trap 79
Glass, J. (1998). Gender liberation, economic squeeze,
or fear of strangers: Why fathers provide infant care
in dual-earner families. Journal of Marriage and the
Family, 60, 821–834.
Guerrero Witt, M., & Wood, W. (2008). The selfregulation
of gendered behavior in everyday life.
Unpublished manuscript, Duke University at
Durham, NC.
Josephs, R. A., Markus, H. R., & Tafarodi, R. W. (1992).
Gender and self-esteem. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 63, 391–402.
Kenny, D. A., Kashy, D. A., & Cook, W. L. (2006).
Dyadic data analysis. New York: Guilford.
Tafarodi, R. W., & Milne, A. B. (2002). Decomposing
global self-esteem. Journal of Personality, 70,
443–483.
Tafarodi, R. W., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1995). Self-liking
and self-competence as dimensions of global selfesteem:
Initial validation of a measure. Journal of
Personality Assessment, 65, 322–342.
U.S. Bureau of Census. (1999). Statistical abstract of
the United States (119th ed.). Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office.
U.S. Bureau of Census. (2006). Statistical abstract of
the United States (126th ed.). Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office.