Background/Purpose Various psychological variables such as empathy, self-esteem, conflict coping style have an influence on partnership of dance sport participants. The purpose of this study was to examine the difference in paths between men and women in partnership model for dancers. The partnership model was constructed by four paths: (1) empathy affects conflict coping style; (2) self-esteem affects conflict coping style; (3) conflict coping style affects partnership; and (4) empathy affects partnership directly.
Method The participants were 150 dancers (58 male; age 17-60 years) who actively involved in dance sport in Seoul, Korea. Participants completed the following questionnaires: Self-esteem Questionnaire (Rosenberg, 1965), Empathy Scale (Jeon, 2003), Conflict Coping Style Scale (Choi, 1994), and Partnership Scale (Kim, 2011). AMOS program was used to analyze the data. To examine whether the factor loadings are equal across both groups, each path was constrained to be equal.
Analysis/Results The partnership model fit to the data well, X2(2) = 2.6, p>.05, CFI=.956, TLI=.994, RMSEA=.045. The first and second paths were not significantly different between groups (men: b=.36 vs. women: b=.22; and men: b=.-19 vs. women: b= -.35, respectively). The third path of conflict coping style affected partnership was significantly different between groups (men: b=.36 vs. women: b=-.09), and the forth path was not significantly different between groups (men: b=.44 vs. women: b=.41).
Conclusions These findings indicate that the effect of role conflict coping style on partnership was different between men and women. Role conflict has more influence on partnership among men than women.