Personal Growth Initiative as a Psychological Armor: Mitigating the Effects of Gender Discrimination on Women Empowerment
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Sadia Zaman
und
Irum Naqvi
Abstract
Personal growth initiative may serve as an internal mechanism through which urban, educated women attain empowerment in environments marked by strong patriarchal structures and collectivist ideologies. This study examines the relationship between personal growth initiative – defined as a self-directed pursuit of psychological development – and perceived gender discrimination and gender role attitudes, aiming to explain changes in empowerment among urban, educated Pakistani women (N = 621, 23–59 years; M = 30.65, SD = 6.68). A moderated mediation model was tested, wherein personal growth initiative was conceptualized as both a protective factor and a moderator in the indirect relationship between gender role attitudes and empowerment, via perceived gender discrimination. Modern gender role attitudes were negatively associated with heightened perceptions of gender discrimination, and positively associated with women empowerment. Higher levels of personal growth initiative weakened this negative association of gender discrimination and women empowerment, both directly and indirectly. The findings highlight personal growth initiative as a promising psychological resource that may help urban, educated Pakistani women. By focusing on internal agency and personal development, the study offers insights into how individual-level strengths can support empowerment within challenging sociocultural environments.
Funding source: Slovakia, and the institutional resources of the National Institute of Psychology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan
Award Identifier / Grant number: VEGA 2/0174/26
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the participants for their time and openness. Special thanks to research collaborators and local community liaisons who facilitated participant recruitment and data collection.
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Research ethics: The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the National Institute of Psychology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan, and complied with ethical standards of informed consent and confidentiality.
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Conflict of interest: The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest concerning the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Research funding: This work is funded by the grant VEGA 2/0174/26, Slovakia, and the institutional resources of the National Institute of Psychology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan.
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Data availability: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request. All the hypotheses and models were pre-contemplated and planned before the data collection phase; however, the study was not formally pre-registered. Supplementary file provides the complete data script and outputs of the analyses run in R for transparency and accuracy.
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