Masters Thesis

A comparison of lesbians and heterosexual women on a measure of self-actualization

The purpose of this study was to measure the levels of self-actualization as determined by the Personal Orientation Inventory in a group of lesbians and a group of heterosexual women to find whether there were any significant differences. Both groups of women were administered the inventory and the results were statistically analyzed. For each of the twelve scales, t-values were computed to determine whether there were any significant differences between the means of the two groups. Confidence limits were also computed to determine whether the lesbian group came from the same population as the heterosexual group. The results of the statistical data indicated that lesbians and heterosexual women did not differ significantly on any of the twelve scales of the Personal Orientation Inventory and that essentially, the lesbian women carne from the same population as the heterosexual women. On the basis of these results, all twelve of the research assertions were confirmed. It was concluded that same-sex preference does not have an inhibiting effect on the process toward self-actualization for these women.

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