Examining Feminist and Critical Consciousness Conceptualizations of Women’s Subjective Well-Being ψ

Abstract

Feminist and critical consciousness theories, that shaped the practice of feminist therapy, are unique in considering the impact of power and privilege on women’s well-being. We investigated tenets of these conceptualizations cross-sectionally by examining relations of critical consciousness, feminist collective action, personal empowerment, and subjective well-being among 247 women recruited via MTurk. We found that critical consciousness had a significant, positive direct link with collective action. Collective action, in turn, had significant, positive direct links with life satisfaction and positive affect. Importantly, critical consciousness via collective action was associated indirectly with greater satisfaction and positive affect. In contrast, critical consciousness was associated directly with lower satisfaction and positive affect. Personal empowerment was associated directly with greater well-being, but only collective action was a mechanism through which critical consciousness was associated with greater well-being. These findings are consistent with theory and support connecting the personal with the political in feminist therapy.

Keywords

feminist therapy activism social justice critical consciousness empowerment

Significance of the Scholarship to the Public

Findings suggest that women’s personal empowerment is associated with greater subjective well-being. Collective action, but not personal empowerment, is a key mechanism through which women’s critical consciousness is associated with greater subjective well-being. Findings are consistent with feminist and critical consciousness theories and add empirical support to connecting the personal with the political in the practice of feminist therapy.

Feminist and critical consciousness theories emphasize dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression in shaping well-being, and they informed the development and practice of feminist therapy (e.g., Brown, 2010, 2018; Enns, 2012; Freire, 1972; Moradi, 2012). Critical consciousness and empowerment are central concepts in these conceptualizations and feminist therapists seek to promote these factors as routes toward enhancing well-being (e.g., Brown, 2010, 2018; Enns, 2012; Gutiérrez, 1990). Specifically, feminist and critical consciousness theories posit that critical consciousness fosters collective action and personal empowerment, and that this empowerment, in turn, promotes well-being (e.g., Brown, 2010, 2018; Enns, 2012; Freire, 1972; Shin et al., 2018). Feminist theories of women’s well-being suggest that empowerment promotes women’s well-being because empowerment represents a resistance to historical and contemporary inequalities that oppress women at societal and individual levels (e.g., Brown, 2018; Gutiérrez, 1994; Johnson et al., 2005; Worell, 2001). Although these theoretical tenets are central to the practice of feminist therapy (Conlin, 2017; Enns, 2012), there is limited research on the concurrent roles of critical consciousness, collective action, and personal empowerment in women’s well-being. In the present study, we addressed this gap in the research by empirically investigating these key relations in women’s subjective well-being. Testing these theoretically grounded relations advances theory and research and informs the practice of feminist therapy. Such integration of science and practice is consistent with counseling psychology’s commitment to evidence-based practice (Chwalisz, 2003).

Specifically, in this study, we explored the concurrent unique direct and indirect relations among women’s critical consciousness, feminist collective action, personal empowerment, and subjective well-being. Critical consciousness is defined as an understanding that social inequalities exist, are unjust, and should be challenged (Freire, 1972; Shin et al., 2018). Empowerment has both collective and personal manifestations and reflects the sense of agency and power to work toward changing oppressive conditions (Enns, 2012; Gutiérrez, 1994; Lee, 2001; Zimmerman, 1995). Collective empowerment specifically refers to collective action and activism, whereas personal empowerment includes personal and interpersonal agency (Johnson et al., 2005; Lee, 2001; Zimmerman, 1995). We focused on women’s well-being, given the centrality of women’s experiences of critical consciousness and empowerment in the development of feminist therapy (e.g., Johnson et al., 2005). As we sought to test theoretical tenets that can inform therapy practice, we focused on subjective well-being because it is posited as particularly relevant to psychotherapy in that many clients initiate help-seeking with subjective well-being outcomes in mind (Lent, 2004). Consistent with prior literature, we operationalized subjective well-being to include life satisfaction, high positive affect, and low negative affect (Diener, 1984).

Feminist and Critical Consciousness Theories and Women’s Well-Being

Freire (1972) pioneered critical consciousness theory and the notion that critical consciousness fosters various forms of empowerment. Critical consciousness encompasses awareness of multiple forms of oppression, such as classism, racism, and heterosexism (Shin et al., 2018). Freire (1972) proposed that through critical consciousness about inequalities and injustice, those who are oppressed can become active agents of change. Indeed, research has linked critical consciousness to various indicators of empowerment. For example, across samples of both racially and ethnically diverse youth and heterosexual, predominantly White college students, indicators of critical consciousness were linked with positive psychosocial functioning, such as academic and career outcomes (e.g., Diemer, 2009; Diemer & Blustein, 2006; Diemer et al., 2010), as well as indicators of social justice-oriented political participation (e.g., Christens & Dolan, 2011; Diemer & Li, 2011; Parent & Silva, 2018). Although not grounded explicitly in Freire’s (1972) theory, social psychological theories and research also point to critical consciousness about injustice as a predictor of collective action for change (e.g., for review see van Zomeren et al., 2008).

Consistent with critical consciousness theory, feminist therapy theory (e.g., Enns, 2012) and social work practice (e.g., Chadiha et al., 2004; Lee & Hudson, 2017) posit that critical consciousness can promote both feminist collective action and personal empowerment in the face of oppression. For example, goals of feminist therapy include increasing both feminist collective action and personal empowerment as routes to enhancing well-being; this is captured in the feminist therapy guiding principle that the personal is political, especially in systems of inequality that oppress women and in women’s resistance against those systems (e.g., Brown, 2010, 2018; Enns, 2012; Johnson et al., 2005; Moradi et al., 2000). In practice, the personal is political principle means that feminist therapy and feminist consciousness-raising groups aim to foster critical consciousness by increasing awareness of systems of power inequalities, oppression, and privilege (e.g., class, gender, race, sexual orientation); connecting personal experiences with such systems of power; and framing efforts toward personal change (e.g., asserting and prioritizing one’s needs) and collective change (e.g., political activism) as adaptive responses to these inequalities (Brown, 2010; Enns, 2012; Hill & Ballou, 1998; Moradi, 2012).

Although feminist therapy is not exclusively for women, it is grounded in women’s experiences and a critical analysis of gender as an axis of power (e.g., Brown, 2010; Budge & Moradi, 2019; Enns, 2012; Johnson et al., 2005). Accordingly, in feminist therapy, focusing on both feminist collective action and the personal empowerment of women is considered particularly important because gender, as a system of power, functions to undermine women’s independence, autonomy, and authority relative to men at the collective and personal levels (e.g., Johnson et al., 2005). Although there are no prior studies that examine the posited set of relations among women’s critical consciousness, feminist collective action, personal empowerment, and subjective well-being concurrently, some prior studies can inform hypotheses about these relations.

First, women’s critical consciousness has been linked to indicators of feminist collective action and personal empowerment. For example, early research (Weitz, 1982) with a sample of predominantly White women suggested that participation in feminist consciousness-raising groups designed to promote critical consciousness increased participants’ commitment to feminist action and their sense of control over their lives. Similarly, critical consciousness was associated positively with self-efficacy in a sample of racially and ethnically diverse women survivors of domestic violence (McGirr & Sullivan, 2017). Thus, there is evidence to suggest that women’s critical consciousness is related to greater feminist collective action and personal empowerment.

Second, prior research connects various forms of collective action and personal empowerment to well-being. For example, indicators of political and collective activism were related positively to well-being in both national and college student samples (Klar & Kasser, 2009), as well as in a sample of sexual minority adults, most of whom identified as European American/White (Velez & Moradi, 2016). Moreover, studies with adult college women and psychiatric outpatients revealed that indicators of personal empowerment, such as sense of personal agency and self-efficacy, were associated positively with well-being and quality of life, and were associated negatively with psychological symptomatology (Peterson et al., 2008; Vauth et al., 2007; Yoder et al., 2012).

Studies focusing specifically on women’s feminist collective action and feminist personal empowerment also link these forms of empowerment with women’s well-being. For example, feminist collective action was correlated positively with well-being in a sample of predominantly White bisexual women (Watson, Morgan, & Craney, 2018). In an experimental study with racially and ethnically diverse college women, well-being increased over three days for women assigned to a feminist collective action via social media condition but not for those assigned to control conditions (Foster, 2015). Similarly, feminist personal empowerment was associated positively with well-being and associated negatively with psychological distress across studies with women who were predominantly White heterosexual college students, college counseling center clients, or community members, as well as women residing in domestic violence shelters who were racially and ethnically diverse and mostly heterosexual (Johnson et al., 2005; Moradi & Funderburk, 2006; Perez et al., 2012; Yoder et al., 2012). Thus, there is evidence that feminist collective action and feminist personal empowerment are each associated positively with women’s well-being.

Moreover, prior research indicates that critical consciousness that co-occurs with feminist empowerment (including personal and collective manifestations) is linked with greater well-being among women. For example, in the aforementioned study on women’s participation in feminist consciousness-raising groups (Weitz, 1982), increases in commitment to feminist action and personal empowerment co-occurred with an increase in self-esteem and a decrease in depression from pre- and post-consciousness-raising groups. Additionally, active commitment feminist identity attitudes, that reflect a critical consciousness about inequality coupled with active commitment to combating inequality, were positively related to women’s well-being in samples of predominantly heterosexual women, including samples from both White and racially and ethnically diverse populations (Saunders & Kashubeck-West, 2006; Yoder et al., 2012). Finally, in a sample of predominantly heterosexual White women, those who had a combination of high feminist critical consciousness and high commitment to feminist collective action had higher well-being scores than those who had a combination of low or moderate feminist critical consciousness and commitment to feminist collective action (Yakushko, 2007). These studies suggest that to the extent that women’s critical consciousness is related to greater feminist collective action and personal empowerment, it may also be related to women’s greater well-being.

However, critical consciousness apart from feminist collective action and personal empowerment may be related to lower well-being for women. Indeed, distress, discontent, and anger are conceptualized as functional responses to recognizing oppression (e.g., Hercus, 1999; Moradi, 2012). Consistent with this conceptualization, in a qualitative study with primarily White, heterosexual and sexual minority, feminist-identified women, participants reported that feminist consciousness fostered their sense of self-worth, empowerment, and commitment to action, while at the same time promoting distress from greater awareness of oppression (Watson, Flores, et al., 2018). Moreover, nascent feminist critical consciousness without collective action (i.e., revelation feminist identity attitudes) has been linked to greater anger, psychological distress, and lower well-being in samples of predominantly White or racially and ethnically diverse women (e.g., Fischer & Good, 2004; Saunders & Kashubeck-West, 2006; Yoder et al., 2012). Thus, it is important to consider potentially distinctive relations between women’s critical consciousness and subjective well-being. Specifically, women’s critical consciousness may be associated indirectly with greater well-being through its positive links with feminist collective action and personal empowerment. Beyond these indirect associations, women’s critical consciousness may have a separate direct relation with lower well-being.

Present Study

In this study, we explored key tenets of feminist and critical consciousness theories regarding women’s subjective well-being. Specifically, we examined the unique direct and indirect relations of critical consciousness, feminist collective action, and personal empowerment with life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect, which are components of subjective well-being (Diener, 1984). We examined a model that tests the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Critical consciousness will be related positively to feminist collective action and personal empowerment.

Hypothesis 2: Feminist collective action and personal empowerment will be related directly with greater subjective well-being (i.e., positive relation with life satisfaction and positive affect, negative relation with negative affect).

Hypothesis 3: Critical consciousness will be related indirectly, through feminist collective action, with greater subjective well-being (i.e., positive indirect relation with life satisfaction and positive affect, negative indirect relation with negative affect).

Hypothesis 4: Critical consciousness will be related indirectly, through personal empowerment, with greater subjective well-being (i.e., positive indirect relation with life satisfaction and positive affect, negative indirect relation with negative affect).

Hypothesis 5: Beyond its aforementioned indirect relations with greater subjective wellbeing, critical consciousness will have a separate direct relation with lower subjective well-being (i.e., negative direct relation with life satisfaction and positive affect, positive direct relation with negative affect).

Importantly, the tests of direct and indirect relations in the present study are cross-sectional. The directionality of these relations was grounded in feminist and critical consciousness theories that fostering critical consciousness promotes empowerment, which in turn promotes well-being (e.g., Brown, 2018). By offering a cross-sectional test of these relations, the present study addressed a gap in the literature regarding data on the simultaneity of these relations. However, cross-sectional relations should not be assumed to be accurate estimates of temporal or causal relations (Maxwell & Cole, 2007; Maxwell et al., 2011). Instead, our cross-sectional tests of direct and indirect relations evaluated critical consciousness’ simultaneous countervailing relations with subjective well-being; that is, its indirect relation with greater subjective well-being via its co-occurrence with collective action and personal empowerment, and its direct relation (apart from collective action and personal empowerment) with lower subjective well-being.

Method

Participants

Data were analyzed from 247 women (transgender inclusive) who ranged in age from 18 to 73 years old (M = 34.20, SD = 12.04). Detailed demographics and response options are reported in Table 1. All 247 participants identified as women for their gender identity and three participants (1.2%) provided an additional gender identity descriptor (i.e., gender nonbinary/two-spirit, gender questioning, gender nonconforming). In addition, 246 participants (99.6%) identified their sex assigned at birth as female; one participant (0.4%) did not respond to the sex assigned at birth question but selected woman for their gender identity.

Table 1.

Sample Demographic Characteristics

Variable	Categories	n	%
Race and/or ethnicity	African/African American/Black	26	10.53
	American Indian/Native American	3	1.21
	Asian/Asian American	17	6.88
	Caucasian/European American/White	176	71.26
	Hispanic/Latina/o American	15	6.07
	Multiracial/Biracial	10	4.05
Sexual orientation	Exclusively lesbian or gay	9	3.64
	Mostly lesbian or gay	3	1.21
	Bisexual	18	7.29
	Mostly heterosexual	36	14.57
	Exclusively heterosexual	173	70.04
	Asexual	3	1.21
	Pansexual	3	1.21
Current social class	Lower class	28	11.34
	Working class	79	31.98
	Middle class	120	48.58
	Upper middle class	18	7.29
	Upper class	1	0.4
	Unreported	1	0.4
Employment status	Full time	124	50.2
	Part time	28	11.34
	Self-employed full-time	11	4.45
	Self-employed part-time	39	15.79
	Unemployed	45	18.22
Education (highest degree obtained)	Some high school	4	1.62
	High school graduate	36	14.57
	Trade/vocational school	16	6.48
	Some college	73	29.55
	College degree (e.g., BA, BS)	85	34.41
	Professional degree (e.g., MBA, MS, PhD, MD)	31	12.55
Sex assigned at birth	Female	246	99.6
	Male	0	0
	Intersex	0	0
	Unreported	1	0.4
Current gender identity (select all that apply)	Woman	247	100
	Man	0	0
	Nonbinary (please describe in your own words)	1	0.4
	Other gender identity (please describe in your own words)	2	0.81

Note. N = 247. Some variables do not total 100% due to small proportions of unreported demographics.

Measures

Critical Consciousness

The Contemporary Critical Consciousness Measure (CCCM; Shin et al., 2018) was used to assess critical consciousness. Shin et al. (2018) drew from feminist intersectional perspectives (e.g., Crenshaw, 1989) and built on prior measures of critical consciousness (e.g., Diemer et al., 2015; McWhirter & McWhirter, 2016) to assess critical consciousness about multiple systems of inequality. The CCCM consists of 19 items (e.g., “All Whites receive unearned privileges in U.S. society,” “LGBTQ individuals should have all the same opportunities in our society as straight people,” “Social welfare programs provide poor people with an excuse not to work [reverse-coded].”). Items are rated on a 7-point, Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Higher scores indicate greater critical consciousness. Regarding validity, CCCM scores were related negatively with prejudicial attitudes (i.e., classism, heterosexism, racism, and transphobia) in predominantly White heterosexual Mechanical Turk (M-Turk) and college student samples (Parent & Silva, 2018; Shin et al., 2018). In the same studies, CCCM item responses yielded a Cronbach’s alphas of .89 in both samples (Parent & Silva, 2018; Shin et al., 2018).

Feminist Collective Action

The Involvement in Feminist Activities Scale (IFAS; Szymanski, 2004) was used to assess feminist collective action. The IFAS consists of 17 items assessing feminist collective action against multiple systems of inequality (e.g., “I am involved in planning/organizing feminist events and activities,” and “I am involved in antiracist work”). Items are rated on a 7-point, Likert-type scale from 1 (very untrue of me) to 7 (very true of me). Higher scores indicate greater involvement in feminist collective action. Regarding validity, IFAS scores were related positively with other indicators of feminist activity, support for feminist ideologies, and feminist identification in samples of predominantly White women who identified as heterosexual or sexual minorities (Bicheler, 2008; Szymanski, 2004). In the same samples, item responses on the IFAS also yielded Cronbach’s alphas of .94 and .97 (Bicheler, 2008; Szymanski, 2004).

Personal Empowerment

The Personal Progress Scale-Revised (PPS-R; Johnson et al., 2005) is grounded in a feminist conceptualization of personal empowerment along multiple identities. Participants are invited to consider their interdependent social and personal identities (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation) and respond to the 28 PPS-R items (e.g., “I have equal relationships with important others in my life,” and “I am feeling in control of my life”). Items are rated on a 7-point, Likert-type scale from 1 (almost never) to 7 (almost always). Higher scores indicate greater personal empowerment. Regarding validity, PPS-R scores were related negatively with anxiety and depression and positively with autonomy, self-acceptance, and overall well-being in a sample of predominantly White heterosexual women (Johnson et al., 2005). In the same sample, item responses on the PPS-R yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of .88 (Johnson et al., 2005).

Life Satisfaction

The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SLWS; Diener et al., 1985) was used to assess life satisfaction. The SWLS consists of 5 items (e.g., “In most ways, my life is close to ideal” and “I am satisfied with my life”). Items are rated on a 7-point, Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Higher scores indicate greater life satisfaction. Regarding validity, SLWS scores were related to lower negative affect and to greater positive affect and self-esteem in a sample of women and men university students (Lucas et al., 1996). Regarding reliability, item responses on the SLWS yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of .87 in a sample of university students (Diener et al., 1985) and Cronbach’s alphas of .93 and .84 in a sample of university women and a heterogeneous sample of midlife women, respectively (Degges-White & Myers, 2006; Mercurio & Landry, 2008).

Positive and Negative Affect

The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson et al., 1988) was used to assess positive and negative affect. The PANAS consists of 20 items (10 items assessing positive and negative affect, each). Items are rated on a 5-point, Likert-type scale from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely). Higher scores on each subscale indicate greater positive affect or negative affect, respectively. Regarding validity, scores on the positive affect subscale were related negatively to measures of psychological distress and depression, whereas scores on the negative affect subscale were related positively to such measures in samples of university students and nonstudent adults (Watson et al., 1988). Regarding reliability, item responses on the positive affect subscale yielded Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .86 to .90 and item responses on the negative affect subscale yielded Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .84 to .87 in the same samples (Watson et al., 1988). In a sample of young adult college women, Cronbach’s alphas were .88 and .90 for positive and negative affect, respectively (Heckman et al., 2016).

Procedure

The institutional review board at a large university in the United States approved the present study. We recruited participants via Amazon’s M-Turk, which allows users to contribute to research in exchange for credit on Amazon.com. The inclusion criteria for the study specified that participants must be at least 18 years of age, reside in the United States, be fluent in English, and identify as a woman (transgender inclusive). We specified these inclusion criteria in our instructions to M-Turk participants and we used the M-Turk country qualification function to restrict participants to those residing in the United States. All study measures were administered online through Qualtrics. Prior to beginning the survey, participants completed an informed consent which described the study as an investigation of the attitudes and experiences of adult women. All study measures were presented in randomized order, with the exception of the demographics measure, which was presented at the end of the survey. Participants were compensated $0.30 in Amazon credit for completing this brief survey. This compensation amount aligns with Goodman et al.’s (2013) review of M-Turk research and their estimate that the typical compensation range for brief M-Turk studies is $0.10 to $0.50, though M-Turk surveys vary widely in length and content, and thus total compensation also varies widely (i.e., from $.01 to more than $10).

A growing body of research has investigated characteristics of M-Turk participants, including potential concerns that they are unusual, they produce random and poor quality responses, and that their willingness to complete surveys for small remuneration indicates atypical attitudes about money and time (e.g., Goodman et al., 2013). Empirical research on these issues indicates that M-Turk samples yield results that are comparable to those from samples recruited with other methods (e.g., community, student, social media) and are more representative of the general population than such samples (Buhrmester et al., 2011; Casler et al., 2013; Goodman et al., 2013). Moreover, research supports the truthfulness of M-Turk participants’ demographic responses (Rand, 2012) and suggests that M-Turk participants provide more accurate responses to factual questions than community samples; this may be because they are using the internet to find answers, but suggests their attentive responding (Goodman et al., 2013).

Results

Preliminary Analyses and Data Quality Screening

We conducted preliminary analyses for data screening and quality checking. Chmielewski and Kucker (2019) cautioned against traditional in-survey attention check items, arguing that these items may bias participants and change their responses. Instead, they recommended screening inclusion criteria, response times, and statistically improbable responses. To this end, we screened the data and removed one entirely blank submission, one participant who did not provide age, one participant who used the same response for every question, and 26 participants who did not report gender identity or did not identify as a woman (transgender inclusive). Additionally, we verified that the sample’s mean completion time approximated our estimated response time of about 10 minutes for the survey (M = 11.8 minutes, SD = 7.32 minutes). We also screened the lowest and highest response time submissions and did not find evidence of poor data quality (e.g., stings of same responses across items or stopping the survey before reaching the demographics at the end).

Next, we examined and found that there were no univariate or multivariate outliers in the sample. Moreover, none of the study variables violated guidelines for normality (skewness > |3|, kurtosis > |10|; Weston & Gore, 2006). In addition, missing data were minimal, with 40 participants missing responses on a combined total of 57 items, which represented .26% of the 21,983 item responses. Little’s Missing Completely at Random (MCAR) test using the item-level data was nonsignificant, χ²(3239) = 3291.31, p = .256, suggesting the data in our sample were missing completely at random. Given this result, we utilized full information maximum likelihood estimation (FIML) to address missing data in our analyses (Enders & Bandalos, 2001; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013).

Model Testing

We conducted structural equation modeling (SEM) using the Lavaan package in R (R Core Team, 2019; Rosseel, 2012). Model evaluation was based on the following commonly used fit indicators: comparative fit index (CFI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardized root mean residual (SRMR; Kline, 2016; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013). Scholars have recommended criteria for acceptable fit that range from CFI ≥ .95, RMSEA ≤ .06, and SRMR ≤ .08 to less conservative cutoffs of CFI ≥ .90, RMSEA ≤ .10, and SRMR ≤ .10 (Hu & Bentler, 1999; Weston & Gore, 2006). Lastly, we used Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Bayesian information criterion (BIC) values to compare models; lower AIC and BIC values indicate better model fit (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013).

We estimated the life satisfaction latent variable using the five SWLS items as indicators, given the brevity of this measure. We estimated the remaining latent variables, which were assessed with longer measures, using exploratory factor analysis to create three item parcels as indicators for each construct (e.g., Little et al., 2002; Weston & Gore, 2006). Item parceling is recommended to optimize model parsimony and ratio of sample size to estimated parameters (e.g., Little et al., 2002; Little et al., 2013), although there are also cautions about using parceling when measures are multidimensional or when item characteristics are of interest, as in scale development studies (Marsh et al., 2013). We deemed parceling acceptable in the present study given that prior factor analyses support unidimensional scoring for each measure (e.g., Johnson et al., 2005; Shin et al., 2018; Szymanski, 2004; Watson et al., 1988), the measures are scored unidimensionally to operationalize the constructs of interest (e.g., Busseri & Sadava, 2011; Parent & Silva, 2018; Velez & Moradi, 2016; Yoder et al., 2012), and the Cronbach’s alphas for items on all measures in the present study exceeded .90 (see Table 2), supporting unidimensionality. To compute parcels, for each measure, we conducted a principal axis factor analysis specifying one factor with all items on that measure. For each measure’s item set, we rank ordered items by the magnitude of their standardized factor loadings and assigned the items across three parcels in countervailing order to balance average factor loadings across parcels (Little et al., 2002).

Table 2.

Intercorrelations and Descriptive Statistics

Measure	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. Critical consciousness	—	.38***	.00	−.27***	−.09	.08
2. Feminist collective action	.38**	—	−.20**	.01	.13	.18*
3. Personal empowerment	−.01	−.17**	—	.41***	.46***	−.50***
4. Life satisfaction	−.26***	.03	.35***	—	.55***	−.40***
5. Positive affect	−.08	.12	.45***	.50***	—	−.21**
6. Negative affect	.08	.15*	−.45***	−.35***	−.16*	—
M	87.04	44.53	137.06	22.62	31.79	19.34
SD	21.12	25.33	23.24	7.64	9.04	8.58
Cronbach’s alpha	.91	.97	.90	.92	.93	.92

Note. Sample N = 247. Correlations and descriptive statistics below the diagonal are for observed variables. Correlations above the diagonal are for latent variables in the measurement model.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

We conducted a structural equation model power analysis (Soper, 2019) to evaluate the adequacy of our sample size. We used the following parameters to conduct the analysis: desired power of .80, six latent variables, 20 items/observed indicators, α = .05, and a conservative minimum standardized path estimate of .25 (between small and medium effect; Soper, 2019) based on prior research yielding medium to large correlations between the variables of interest (e.g., Johnson et al., 2005; Moradi & Funderburk, 2006; Perez et al., 2012; Saunders & Kashubeck-West, 2006; Watson, Morgan, & Craney, 2018; Wright et al., 2010; Yoder et al., 2012). This calculation suggested that the minimum sample size of 156 for our model structure and 246 for detecting effects.

Measurement Model

Before testing our hypothesized model, we tested a measurement model estimating loadings of observed indicators on their intended latent constructs, along with the correlations among latent variables. This model provided good fit to the data: χ²(155) = 352.16, p < .001, CFI = .96, RMSEA = .07, 90% CI [0.06, 0.08], p < .001, and SRMR = .05. Latent variable intercorrelations and descriptive statistics are reported in Table 2; intercorrelations of observed indicators are reported in Table 3. Bivariate correlations (latent and observed) ranged from small to large effects (Cohen, 1992), with critical consciousness correlated positively with feminist collective action and negatively with life satisfaction; feminist collective action correlated positively with negative affect and negatively with personal empowerment; personal empowerment correlated positively with life satisfaction and positive affect and negatively with negative affect; life satisfaction correlated positively with positive affect and negatively with negative affect; and positive and negative affect correlated negatively with one another.

Table 3.

Correlations among the Observed Indicators of the Latent Variables

Measures	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
1. CCp1	—	.819***	.817***	.358***	.305***	.205**	−.011	.163*	.005	−.218***	−.239***	−.181**	−.198**	−.185**	−.027	−.027	−.085	.059	.104	−.038
2. CCp2		—	.819***	.348***	.304***	.218***	−.027	.143*	.016	−.216***	−.263***	−.194**	−.198**	−.200**	−.041	−.047	−.094	.048	.082	−.037
3. CCp3			—	.439***	.409***	.348***	−.155*	−.029	−.099	−.246***	−.247***	−.224***	−.200**	−.195**	−.115	−.117	−.106	.120	.149*	.064
4. FCAp1				—	.914***	.911***	−.172**	−.206**	−.045	−.045	.020	−.031	−.055	.058	.074	.120	.136*	.182**	.106	.214***
5. FCAp2					—	.908***	−.175**	−.226***	−.051	−.011	.062	−.008	−.021	.095	.072	.115	.137*	.128	.061	.206**
6. FCAp3						—	−.207**	−.285***	−.058	.018	.085	.006	.012	.105	.083	.120	.178**	.146*	.053	.222***
7. PEp1							—	.722***	.748***	.266***	.241***	.357***	.256***	.107	.359***	.281***	.309***	−.368***	−.442***	−.433***
8. PEp2								—	.715***	.209**	.179**	.324***	.264***	.062	.409***	.355***	.297***	−.346***	−.358***	−.451***
9. PEp3									—	.416***	.388***	.452***	.409***	.265***	.442***	.351***	.408***	−.251***	−.368***	−.351***
10. LS1										—	.796***	.824***	.729***	.641***	.476***	.379***	.462***	−.305***	−.359***	−.213***
11. LS2											—	.824***	.745***	.623***	.450***	.308***	.421***	−.304***	−.354***	−.224***
12. LS3												—	.772***	.623***	.530***	.384***	.478***	−.388***	−.402***	−.305***
13. LS4													—	.583***	.445***	.300***	.400***	−.274***	−.302***	−.212***
14. LS5														—	.387***	.308***	.372***	−.221***	−.250***	−.101
15. PAp1															—	.810***	.812***	−.204***	−.224***	−.231***
16. PAp2																—	.745***	−.074	−.129*	−.078
17. PAp3																	—	−.087	−.168**	−.102
18. NAp1																		—	.798***	.766***
19. NAp2																			—	.768***
20. NAp3																				—

Note. Sample N = 247. For each variable p = parcel. CC = critical consciousness; FCA = feminist collective action; PE = personal empowerment; LS = life satisfaction; PA = positive affect; NA = negative affect.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Structural Model

Next, we tested our hypothesized structural model, which contained all hypothesized direct and indirect relations delineated in Figure 1; feminist collective action was allowed to covary with personal empowerment, and the three subjective well-being variables were allowed to covary with each other. This model had good fit to the data: χ²(155) = 352.16, p < .001; CFI = .96; and RMSEA = .07, 90% CI [0.06, 0.08], p < .001, SRMR = .05, AIC = 23,690.06 and BIC = 23,953.26. The model yielded large effect sizes of explained variance for the criterion variables (Sink & Stroh, 2006), accounting for 28.7% of the variance in life satisfaction, 30.2% of the variance in positive affect, and 26.0% of the variance in negative affect. Unique direct associations among the variables in the model are depicted in Figure 1. Providing mixed support for Hypothesis 1, critical consciousness had a significant unique positive direct relation with feminist collective action but was not associated significantly with personal empowerment. Largely consistent with Hypothesis 2, feminist collective action had significant unique positive relations with life satisfaction and positive affect, but it was not associated significantly with negative affect; and personal empowerment had significant unique positive relations with life satisfaction and positive affect, and a significant unique negative relation with negative affect.

Figure 1.

Structural model with standardized path estimates.

To test the mediated relations in Hypothesis 3 and 4, we tested the significance of indirect relations using 1,000 bootstrapped samples (Shrout & Bolger, 2002). Table 4 presents the standardized indirect path coefficients and errors, bootstrap unstandardized indirect path coefficients and errors, and 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals. Indirect relations are significant if their 95% confidence interval does not include zero. In partial support of Hypothesis 3, critical consciousness had significant positive indirect relations with life satisfaction and positive affect through feminist collective action. The indirect relation of critical consciousness with negative affect through feminist collective action was not significant. Contrary to Hypothesis 4, critical consciousness did not have significant indirect relations with life satisfaction, positive affect, or negative affect through personal empowerment. Finally, in partial support of Hypothesis 5, critical consciousness had significant unique negative relations with life satisfaction and positive affect, but was not related significantly and directly with negative affect.

Table 4.

Indirect Relations in the Hypothesized Model

Paths	Standardizedindirect effect and errors		Bootstrap unstandardizedeffect and errors		95% CIbootstrap bias corrected
Paths	$β$	SE	B	SE	Lower bound	Upper bound
Hypothesis 3
Critical consciousness > Feminist collective action > Life satisfaction	.090	0.028	0.018	0.006	.009	.035*
Critical consciousness > Feminist collective action > Positive affect	.117	0.032	0.055	0.016	.030	.093*
Critical consciousness > Feminist collective action > Negative affect	.022	0.030	0.010	0.014	−.017	.035
Hypothesis 4
Critical consciousness > Personal empowerment > Life satisfaction	.001	0.036	0.000	0.007	−0.014	0.016
Critical consciousness > Personal empowerment > Positive affect	.001	0.041	0.001	0.020	−0.037	0.043
Critical consciousness > Personal empowerment > Negative affect	−.001	0.038	−0.001	0.017	−0.037	0.036

p < .05.

Nested Model Comparison

As an additional test of Hypothesis 5, we compared the hypothesized model to a nested model that constrained the direct associations of critical consciousness with each of the well-being variables to 0. This model examined the acceptability of a more parsimonious model that eliminated the direct associations of critical consciousness with well-being variables, and in which collective action and personal empowerment fully accounted for the associations of critical consciousness with the well-being variables (Figure 2). This model had acceptable fit to the data: χ²(158) = 382.30, p < .001; CFI = .95; and RMSEA = .08, 90% CI [0.07, 0.09], p < .001, SRMR = .08, AIC = 23,714.19 and BIC = 23,966.87. However, this constrained model evidenced significantly poorer fit than the hypothesized model Δ χ²(3) = 30.14, p < .001, had greater AIC and BIC values, and accounted for lower variance in the criterion variables: 17.4% of the variance in life satisfaction, 26.3% of the variance in positive affect, and 25.7% of the variance in negative affect. Thus, we retained our hypothesized structural model, which included both direct and indirect relations from critical consciousness to the well-being variables.

Figure 2.

Alternative model with standardized path estimates.

Discussion

In this study, we examined tenets of feminist and critical consciousness theories as applied to women’s subjective well-being (e.g., Brown, 2010; Enns, 2012; Freire, 1972; Shin et al., 2018). These theories inform the practice of feminist therapy (e.g., Enns, 2012). Our integration of these theories was consistent with counseling psychologists’ calls to resist theoretical silos and attend to areas of cross-theory convergence (e.g., Moradi, 2013; Moradi & Grzanka, 2017). Our results support key posited relations among critical consciousness, feminist collective action, personal empowerment, and women’s subjective well-being, with the hypothesized model accounting for large proportions of variance in life satisfaction (29%), positive affect (30%), and negative affect (26%). Importantly, the results also suggest distinct relations involving feminist collective action versus personal empowerment, as well as across the different indicators of subjective well-being. These findings advance empirical support for feminist and critical consciousness theories as well as for tenets of feminist therapy, consistent with calls for evidence-based practice in counseling psychology (Chwalisz, 2003).

Consistent with feminist and critical consciousness theories, we found that critical consciousness had a significant, positive direct link with feminist collective action. Collective action in turn had significant, positive, unique direct links with life satisfaction and positive affect. Importantly, critical consciousness via feminist collective action was associated indirectly with greater life satisfaction and positive affect. Beyond this indirect relation, critical consciousness was associated directly with lower life satisfaction and positive affect. Some of these significant direct and indirect relations were not evident in the simple bivariate associations (e.g., feminist collective action did not have a significant bivariate correlation with life satisfaction or positive affect), but emerged as unique associations when the covariation of the variables were accounted for in the hypothesized model. Indeed, such co-constitution is an important aspect of women’s experiences of critical consciousness and collective action. Importantly, attending to such covariations in the present analyses suggested conceptually meaningful suppression effects (Paulhus et al., 2004) whereby the addition of one or more predictor variables (e.g., critical consciousness and personal empowerment) clarified and strengthened the relation between another predictor and criterion (e.g., the relation of feminist collective action with life satisfaction and positive affect). Specifically, the present findings suggest that critical consciousness may be associated with greater subjective well-being for women to the extent that it is associated with feminist collective action. This pattern of findings is consistent with prior research with other populations (e.g., college student and national samples, sexual minority and heterosexual samples) linking critical consciousness with political action (e.g., Parent & Silva, 2018) and linking political activism with well-being (e.g., Klar & Kasser, 2009; Velez & Moradi, 2016).

It is noteworthy that in prior studies, women’s critical consciousness was linked with greater subjective well-being when operationalizations of critical consciousness included commitment to activism (e.g., Saunders & Kashubeck-West, 2006; Yoder et al., 2012), whereas women’s critical consciousness was linked with lower subjective well-being when operationalizations of critical consciousness did not include commitment to activism (e.g., Fischer & Good, 2004; Yoder et al., 2012). Our separate analysis of critical consciousness and feminist collective action in the present study helps to clarify this pattern and expand on prior conceptualizations of critical consciousness as simultaneously promoting subjective well-being and distress (e.g., Hercus, 1999; Moradi, 2012; Watson et al., 2018). This is an important nuance to consider for theory and practice. Specifically, the present findings suggesting that critical consciousness via feminist collective action is linked with women’s greater subjective well-being, whereas critical consciousness without collective action may strain women’s subjective well-being, supports the importance of therapists and activists connecting the personal with the political and fostering empowerment through feminist collective action. For example, therapists can help clients explore community groups, online organizations, or other collective action opportunities that fit with clients’ personal experiences and presenting concerns.

Another important nuance revealed in our results is that beyond the aforementioned associations through feminist collective action, there was no significant indirect relation between critical consciousness and subjective well-being through personal empowerment. Personal empowerment was associated directly with greater life satisfaction and positive affect, and with lower negative affect, but it was not associated with critical consciousness. At first, this appears to differ from prior studies that suggested a link between critical consciousness and personal empowerment (e.g., McGirr & Sullivan, 2017; Weitz, 1982). However, the prior studies involved collective interventions to promote personal empowerment, including participation in feminist consciousness-raising groups and receiving services in residential domestic violence shelters. As such, these studies may have promoted both feminist collective action and personal empowerment simultaneously. Assessing feminist collective action and personal empowerment separately in the present study allowed us to separate their distinctive relations with critical consciousness and subjective well-being.

Importantly, critical consciousness, feminist collective action, and personal empowerment also had distinctive unique relations with the different indicators of subjective well-being. Critical consciousness was associated indirectly, via feminist collective action, with greater life satisfaction and positive affect. Critical consciousness was associated directly with lower life satisfaction and positive affect. However, neither critical consciousness nor feminist collective action was associated significantly with negative affect. By contrast, personal empowerment was associated with all three indicators of subjective well-being (i.e., greater life satisfaction and positive affect, lower negative affect). It is also noteworthy that feminist collective action and personal empowerment had a small negative association, suggesting that women’s experiences of constrained personal empowerment is related to greater feminist collective action. Indeed, systemic oppression limits women’s personal empowerment and the effectiveness of personal empowerment in counteracting oppression; these limits of personal empowerment may motivate collective action. Thus, as our findings suggest, personal empowerment and collective action may not necessarily go hand in hand. This is consistent with prior studies that distinguish women’s commitment to feminist collective action from personal values of empowerment or egalitarianism (e.g., Yoder et al., 2012; Zucker, 2004; Zucker & Bay-Cheng, 2010). However, the present findings add that feminist collective action and personal empowerment may have distinct and complementary functions for women’s subjective well-being.

Implications for Practice, Activism, and Training

In the context of limited past research on feminist therapy theory (Budge & Moradi, 2018), the present findings offer empirical support for practice, activism, and training regarding feminist therapy goals to connect the personal with the political and to promote empowerment in order to foster women’s subjective well-being in the context of societal oppression (Brown, 2010, 2018; Conlin, 2017; Enns, 2012; Moradi et al., 2000). These goals align well with the emphasis on diversity issues and social justice of counseling psychology (American Psychological Association, 2020). The findings of this study support these goals and guide our recommendations for therapists to enhance women’s personal empowerment and also to connect the personal with the political through promoting critical consciousness and feminist collective action (Brown, 2010; Enns, 2012; Moradi et al., 2000). For example, the results support the tenets of empowerment-centered social work perspectives (e.g., Gutiérrez, 1990), which aim to analyze power, powerlessness, and the social structural origins of the clients’ presenting concerns; this can promote critical consciousness. The findings of this study suggest the importance of coupling such power analysis and consciousness raising with helping clients develop and mobilize the skills and resources to gain power; this can involve both personal level skills, such as career exploration and assertiveness, and collective skills, such as community organizing (e.g., Chronister et al., 2006; Gutiérrez, 1990).

Moreover, our findings can help therapists, activists, and educators to promote such strategies with knowledge and intentionality about the distinctive functions of interventions aimed toward specific outcomes. Specifically, interventions that promote personal empowerment may foster women’s overall subjective well-being, including enhancing life satisfaction and positive affect, and reducing negative affect. However, such interventions may not connect critical consciousness with greater well-being. By contrast, interventions that promote feminist collective action may link women’s critical consciousness with greater life satisfaction and positive affect, but such interventions may not lower negative affect. Thus, promoting feminist collective action may be employed as an important tool in therapy, activism, and training for channeling women’s critical consciousness into positive aspects of subjective well-being. Separate from critical consciousness and feminist collective action, promoting personal empowerment may be a distinct tool for fostering women’s overall subjective well-being.

Limitations and Implications for Future Research

The present findings should be interpreted in light of a number of limitations. The sample demographics form the boundaries of generalizability for the results. Most of the women who participated in this study identified as White, heterosexual, middle class, between 22 and 34 years old, and all but one reported that they were assigned female at birth. Future researchers can explore the replicability of the findings with more diverse samples, including people of all genders, broader age ranges, and with multiple minority statuses. For example, building on the present findings, future researchers can explore how multiple minority statuses and intersections of majority and minority statuses may shape people’s experiences of critical consciousness, collective action, and personal empowerment. Given the role of social identity in promoting collective action (e.g., van Zomeren et al., 2008), perhaps identifying with multiple minority statuses or having an understanding of one’s privileged statuses fosters people’s commitment to collective action based on coalition politics over single identity politics (e.g., Cole, 2008; Collins, 2013; Crenshaw, 1991). Future researchers can explore the well-being implications of such critical consciousness and collective action commitments. Similarly, given that the present study was conducted with a nonclinical sample, an important future direction is to evaluate the replicability of the results with women engaged in therapy or in other modes of promoting healing, critical consciousness, and collective action.

In addition, the focus of the present study was on self-report data. As such, responses reflect participants’ self-perceptions, as opposed to observed behaviors. Future researchers could explore observational data on personal empowerment or collective action. Moreover, although our study is cross-sectional, our mediation model was informed by the theoretically posited causal relations that fostering critical consciousness and empowerment promotes well-being (e.g., Brown, 2018). As such, the present study addressed a gap in the literature by offering a cross-sectional test of these relations. However, cross-sectional relations should not be assumed to be accurate estimates of temporal or causal relations (Maxwell & Cole, 2007; Maxwell et al., 2011). Future longitudinal research is needed to evaluate potential long-term and temporal relations from (a) critical consciousness to collective action and (b) personal empowerment to well-being. Similarly, experimental designs can help to reveal potential causal mechanisms, for example, determining whether heightening women’s critical consciousness through a psychoeducation workshop increases feminist collective action and personal empowerment.

Building on prior research on feminist consciousness-raising groups and interventions (e.g., McGirr & Sullivan, 2017; Weitz, 1982), feminist therapy process and outcome studies can also test causal and temporal processes suggested by the present findings. For example, such research can evaluate whether therapeutic interventions that connect clients with opportunities for feminist collective action, and clients’ degree of engagement in such actions, increases clients’ subjective well-being. Similarly, research on training and education in psychology (and other) programs can examine whether social justice courses designed to promote critical consciousness actually increase critical consciousness, and in turn whether they increase collective action and subjective well-being. Process oriented conceptualizations of empowerment that define empowerment as a dynamic interplay of setting power-oriented goals, carrying out actions to achieve those goals, and assessing the effectiveness of those actions (e.g., Cattaneo & Goodman, 2015) may be particularly useful in researching potential temporal and causal processes underlying the relations tested in this study.

Forms of feminist collective action are evolving, and measures of collective action will need to evolve to incorporate new forms of activism, such as activism through social media. Relatedly, the measures of critical consciousness, collective action, and personal empowerment used in this study were all grounded in feminist theoretical frameworks. However, the extent to which the items in these measures made feminist intersectional conceptualization obvious to participants may have varied. Indeed, assessment of feminist intersectional critical consciousness and collective action are important areas for future advancement. For example, the IFAS assesses involvement in feminist collective action, which could be interpreted as intersectional by definition, but only a few of its items explicitly assess activism focused on racism or other inequalities. Similarly, although the CCCM is informed by feminist intersectional analysis, it explicitly addresses racism, heterosexism, and classism, but not sexism. Other measures focus primarily on critical consciousness of the intersection of racism and sexism, but not other inequalities (e.g., Greenwood, 2008; King, 2003). Moreover, in some theories and research (including the present study), critical consciousness of injustice was conceptualized as a distinct correlate of collective action (e.g., van Zomeren et al., 2008). However, in some measures of critical consciousness, collective action was assessed as part of critical consciousness (e.g., Diemer et al., 2017). One such measure (Diemer et al., 2017) was not grounded explicitly in feminist intersectional conceptualizations, but assessed consciousness and action in regards to multiple inequalities, including sexism. Efforts are needed to integrate these related bodies of literature and advance the assessment of feminist intersectional critical consciousness and collective action, while addressing multiple axes of inequality.

Additionally, the present study focused on specific correlates of women’s subjective well-being according to critical consciousness and feminist therapy conceptualizations. However, each of the exogenous variables in this study (i.e., critical consciousness, feminist collective action, personal empowerment) have multiple predictors that researchers can examine in relation to women’s subjective well-being in future studies. Researchers can further build on the present results to consider additional correlates of women’s well-being. For example, in addition to critical consciousness, predictors of collective action include social and politicized identity (e.g., feminist identification), as well as efficacy and outcome expectations for action (e.g., Duncan, 2012; Duncan & Stewart, 2007; van Zomeren et al., 2008; Zucker, 2004; Zucker & Bay-Cheng, 2010). Similarly, the large proportions of variance accounted for in the subjective well-being variables in our study suggest that future research on women’s well-being would benefit from grounding in feminist and critical consciousness theories and incorporating critical consciousness and empowerment predictors.

Conclusion

The present findings suggest that women’s personal empowerment is associated with greater subjective well-being, whereas feminist collective action (but not personal empowerment) is a key mechanism through which women’s critical consciousness is associated with greater life satisfaction and positive affect. Without feminist collective action, critical consciousness may strain women’s life satisfaction and positive affect. This is consistent with and adds empirical support to key tenets of feminist therapy, which suggest the value of connecting the personal with the political and incorporating both collective action and personal empowerment as therapy and social justice goals.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

Sarah E. Conlin is now at Washington College, Chestertown, MD, and Richard P. Douglass is now at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sarah E. Conlin

Author Biographies

Sarah E. Conlin, PhD, is an assistant professor at Washington College in the Department of Psychology. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Temple University’s Counseling Services in August 2020. She received her PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Florida. Her research focuses on well-being, resilience, and social change, with a focus on marginalized populations, particularly related to gender issues and LGBTQ+ populations. Her research has also examined the impact of discrimination on mental health outcomes.

Richard P. Douglass, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychology in the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities’ counseling psychology program. His research focuses on how experiences of discrimination among minoritized groups is associated with well-being.

Bonnie Moradi, PhD, is professor of psychology and the director of the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research. Her research focuses on equity and justice across intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and other axes of power. This research examines the nature of experiences of inequality and their implications for health, work, education, and organizations. Dr. Moradi is the recipient of national awards including the American Psychological Association (APA) Society of Counseling Psychology Best in Science Award, APA Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, and APA Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Award for Scholarship.

Staci Ouch, MS, is a counseling psychology doctoral candidate at the University of Florida. Her program of research broadly explores the health disparities, coping processes, and minority stress within sexual minority and/or racial/ethnic minority individuals.

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