WOMEN OR FEMINISTS - ASSESSING WOMENS GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS

Social psychological research often relies on measures of group identification in assessing levels of group consciousness. However, for women, the relationship between gender identification and group consciousness may not be a straightforward one. Questionnaire data were used to examine the relationships between measures of group identity and group evaluations with other attitudinal, phenomenological, and developmental measures of feminist consciousness. Research participants were 234 undergraduate women; the majority (75%) were white and from middle-to upper-middle-class backgrounds. The results supported the hypothesis that use of the reference group ''feminists,'' rather than the more general group ''women,'' would be more strongly related to other dimensions of group consciousness in women.