Strategies of mate selection and perceptions of gender roles as predictors of attitudes concerning marriage among university students

There are two aims of this research. The first aim is to investigate whether attitudes of university students concerning marriage differ in terms of independent variables which are gender, relationship status, gender role, faculty (department) which is studied, where family lives and educational status of parents. The second aim of research is to determine the relationship between attitudes of university students concerning marriage and strategies of mate selection, gender roles, some socio-demographic variables (gender, relationship status, age and monthly income). This research was designed with correlational model and casual-comparative model which are members from the major illustrations of relational screening methods. The research sample consists of students studying at four-year faculties of Inönü University at 2014-2015 academic year. The sample involving 718 students was constituted by using purposeful stratified sampling method. ''Inonu Marriage Attitude Scale'', which was developed by Bayoğlu and Atli (2014), "Inönü Mate Selection Scale'', which was developed by Altundaş and Atli (2014) and "Bem Sex-Role Inventory'', which was developed by Bem (1974) and adopted into Turkish by Kavuncu (1987) were used for collecting data. Descriptive statistical calculations were used while analyzing the data. T-test was performed to determine whether attitudes of university students concerning marriage differ in terms of gender and relationship status variables and Cohen's d value was used to calculate effect size when there is a significant difference. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to determine whether attitudes of university students concerning marriage significantly differ according to gender roles, faculty (department) which is studied, where the family lives and educational status of parents. After the difference was found between groups by one-way analysis of variance, Scheffe and Dunnett's C tests were performed to determine which groups significantly differ. Effect size for significantly different groups were calculated by omega square test (ω2). Lastly, hierarchical regression analysis was performed to determine whether strategies of mate selection, gender roles, and some socio-demographic variables (gender, relationship status, age and monthly income) significantly predicts attitudes of university students concerning marriage. Attitudes of university students concerning marriage significantly differed based on the gender variable. According to this finding, attitudes of male students concerning marriage were more positive than attitudes of female students. Effect size of this difference (Cohen's d = .22) was found relatively low. Attitudes of university students concerning marriage significantly differed based on the gender variable. According to this finding, attitudes of male students concerning marriage were more positive than attitudes of female students. Effect size of this difference (Cohen's d = .22) was found relatively low. Attitudes of university students concerning marriage significantly differed in terms of their relationship status variable. Attitudes of students who have romantic relationship were more positive than attitudes of students who do not have romantic relationship. Effect size of this difference (Cohen's d = .22) was also found low. When attitudes of university students concerning marriage were compared in terms of gender roles, it was found that attitudes towards marriage significantly differs and individuals who have femininity and masculinity gender roles have more positive attitudes about marriage than individuals who have unclear gender roles. The effect size of the difference between attitudes towards marriage in terms of gender roles variable was found low (ω2 = .018) Attitudes of university students concerning marriage were found to significantly differ in terms of faculty which was studied, and students from Faculty of Theology have more positive attitudes towards marriage than students from Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. The effect size of the difference between attitudes of students in terms of faculty was found at low level (ω2 = .015). Attitudes of university students concerning marriage did not significantly differentiate in terms of the place where family lives and educational status of parents. Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to investigate the relationships between strategies of mate selection, gender roles, some socio-demographic variables (gender, relationship status, age and monthly income) and attitudes of university students concerning marriage, and it was found that strategies of mate selection, gender roles, some socio-demographic variables (gender, relationship status, age and monthly income) explained 19% of variance of attitudes concerning marriage. According to standardized regression coefficients (β), relative importance of predictor variables on attitudes concerning marriage were femininity gender role, physical feature, gender, virginity, relationship status, socio-economic status, love, masculinity gender role, child care and age, respectively from high to low. Key words: Marriage Attitudes, Strategies of Mate Selection, Gender Roles, University Students