How to analyze this: I have 2 independent variable (ordinal and nominal) and one dependent variable. How to analyze the correlation and do the t-test for that?

You should only test one independent variable at a time. I assume that when you say sex, you mean gender? First off, we all know that females gossip more. Fact of life. We can throw that variable out. Haha.

Now with self esteem, I would ask those who are known gossipers how they would rate their self esteem on a scale from 1–10. And then ask people that are non-gossipers, how they would rate their self esteem.

Anyway, Is your hypothesis that low self esteem leads to gossiping, or that high self esteem leads to gossip? Or that gossiping leads to high/low self esteem?

Are you asking which function in your software package to use? Are you asking how to interpret the results?

Gender is going to be a dummy variable. Gossip will be your dependent variable—do you have a scale for that? Self-esteem your independent variable, at least as you have described it in your question. Is that the ordinal scale?

You plug it into your software. Use the function you were told to. Analyze the results to see what you have. I’m guessing you won’t get any significant correlation. Where’s your data from?

big thank you, Afos22 and wundayatta,,
yes, it’s gender actually..

dependent var: gossip
independent var: self-esteem and gender

my hypothesis is that there would be negative correlation between self-esteem and gossip, where low SE leads to gossip, and well yes women would likely to gossip more than men..

scale: for gossip behavior I use an adaptation questionnaire from tendency to gossip questionnaire and I use Likert scales, so the data would be considered as interval.

well, I also want to check this:
1. the difference of self-esteem in man and woman
2. the difference of gossip in man and woman
3. then relate (1) and (2) to see the relation of self-esteem and gossip based on gender, can I do that?

This looks like a very difficult study to perform. Because self-esteem is self reported, many low-esteemed individuals report a higher level of esteem and some high-esteemed report lower. Esteem may be a function of other emotional states. E.g., a person without social skills will feel lonely and they would regard themselves poorly. I would expect a high correlation between gossip and loneliness, especially in women.