3.1 Sex Role Stereotypes And Androgyny

Question 1

What is gender type?

Answer 1

a biological fact

Question 2

Does gender type affect our behaviour?

Answer 2

behaviour and/or choice is not related to gender. The way we behave however is affected by our social environment, upbringing and experiences

Question 3

what are sex-role stereotypes?

Answer 3

are socially and/or culturally defined sets of expectations we have about the behaviour of each gender

Question 4

How do we learn sex-role stereotypes?

Answer 4

We learn these stereotypes both implicitly (internalisation - schema building) and explicitly, through modelling (SLT)

Question 5

define androgyny

Answer 5

expressing both male and female characteristics

Question 6

define gender

Answer 6

a person’s sense of maleness or femaleness, a psychological/social construct

Question 7

define sex

Answer 7

being genetically male (XY) or female (XX)

Question 8

define sex-role stereotypes

Answer 8

a set of shared expectations within a social group about what men and women should do and think

Question 9

What did Bem claim surrounding androgyny in the 1970s?

Answer 9

In the 1970s, Bem introduced the idea that one person can display behaviours of both genders
She claimed you could not reliably tell someone’s gender by a list of their behaviours alone; most people perform some non-stereotypical behaviours
She said stereotypes in modern society could cause psychological and social harm by artificially restricting behaviour

Question 10

What effect can gender stereotypes have on self worth?

Answer 10

Reinforcing fixed (musturbatory) distinctions could result in lower self-worth

Question 11

What does BSRI stand for?

Answer 11

Bem Sex Role Inventory

Question 12

How was the BSRI performed?

Answer 12

The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) contains 20 masculine, 20 feminine and 20 neutral items
Participants use a 7-point Likert scale to rate their likelihood of performing the behaviours
Scores are given for:
Masculinity - high masculine, low feminine
Femininity - low masculine, high feminine
Androgyny - high ratio of masculine to feminine

Question 13

Criticisms of the BSRI?

Answer 13

criticised for describing androgyny (high in both M and F traits) but not the opposite (low in both M and F traits) (Spence et al. 1975)

Question 14

A fourth category was added to the BSRI, what was it?

Answer 14

A fourth category was added

Undifferentiated - low masculine, low feminine

Question 15

What were the criticisms of the BSRI fourth category, undifferentiated?

Answer 15

This fourth type has been criticised for a lack of construct validity; are there enough items/range in the neutral category to fully describe someone?

Question 16

What was Bem’s (1983) Gender Schema Theory?

Answer 16

Everyone acts according to their dominant schema for a given situation
Some people have a wider repertoire of schematic references than others (they’re androgynous)
Some have learned very specific schemata (they’re strongly M or F)

Question 17

summarise sex-role stereotypes

Answer 17

they tell us what is appropriate for male and female behaviour

• Learned from birth, related, related to cultural norms
• Implicit modelling, explicitly taught.

Question 18

summarise androgyny

Answer 18

being masculine and feminine is psychologically more healthy (bem)

• BSRI personality traits identified by 200 undergraduates; 20 masculine, 20 feminine, 20 neural adjectives
• Femininity and masculinity measured independently; total score shows masculine, feminine, androgynous or undifferentiated type.
• Bem’s gender schema theory - androgynous person has a different cognitive style, freer to chose behaviours

Question 19

evaluation of sex-role stereotypes and androgyny

Answer 19

support for parental influence - choice of gender-matched toys made by mothers (smith and lloyd)
androgyny and psychological health - masculinity scores negatively correlated with e.g. depression and anxiety, femininity scores positively correlated except if score was high
real-world applications - parents adopt gender-neutral child-rearing, still regarded as unhealthy by some
reliability (bem) - test-retest high, split-half improved by removing socially undesirable items
validity - correlation may be due to self-esteem rather than androgyny, or due to response bias select higher ratings, and adjectives may have low temporal validity

Question 20

research support for influence of sex-stereotypes and androgyny on parents

Answer 20

choice of gender-matched toys chosen by mothers (smith and lloyd)
mothers when presented with a baby were far more likely to chose toys for the child to play with based on their assigned ‘sex’ and the clothes they were dressed in, therefore reinforcing sex-stereotypes

Question 21

what research suggests a positive correlation between androgyny and psychological health

Answer 21

Prakash et al. 2010 tested 100 married indian females
females with lower masculinity scores had lower depressions scores, whereas those with higher femininity scores had higher depressions scores.
masculinity scores negatively correlated with e.g. depression and anxiety, femininity scores positively correlated except if score was high
supports the view that androgyny has psychoprotective effects

Question 22

validity of the BSRI…

Answer 22

most of the adjectives in the BSRI are socially desirable - therefore someone who scored high on both masculine and feminine traits would be far more likely to have higher self esteem then someone who just chose masculine or feminine traits
this suggests that androgyny doesn’t explain psychological healthiness at all
the validity of the inventory has been criticised in terms of response bias, those classed as androgynous simply had higher scores than those classed as either masculine or feminine.
lacks temporal validity, many of the adjectives are no longer classed as just masculine or feminine

Question 23

reliability of the BSRI…

Answer 23

research has demonstrated high test-retest reliability for the BSRI

Question 24

explain the lack of temporal validity associated with the BSRI

Answer 24

adjectives used in the BSRI were selected in the 1970s
people’s attitudes have long changed, is the inventory still appropriate?
Hoffman and Borders (2001) asked almost 400 students to rate the items on the BSRI as masculine or feminine, only 2/60 terms were still endorsed as 100% one gender - and they were the adjectives masculine and feminine
all other adjectives failed to reach a 75% agreement level, this suggests that the BSRI is no longer relevant