Women and self-help books

Abstract

Over the past forty years, psychological self-help books have become increasingly popular. Despite the success of self-help books and popular psychology in the media, relatively little research has been done in this area, especially in self-selected and self-administered conditions. The purpose of this dissertation was to assess a representative sample of American women on their attitudes and beliefs about self-help books via an online survey. Specifically, this study examined 343 women's general positive or negative attitudes towards self-help material, beliefs about their credibility and effectiveness, ideas why women read self-help books, and what they perceive to be the best solutions to social, emotional, or behavioral problems. In addition to collecting demographic information, participant's attitudes towards feminism were also measured. Results from this study indicate that women were generally positive about self-help, did not believe they were effective, and prefer individual solutions for social, emotional, or behavioral problems. Demographic variables and feminist beliefs were not found to account for differences between "self-help readers" and "non self-help readers".