Androgyny

Question 1

What is androgyny?

Answer 1

A personality that includes a balance of both masculine and feminine traits and behaviours

Question 2

How did Bem challenge the traditional views on gender?

Answer 2

• Bem challenged the concept of male and female, suggesting more than just 2 gender types
• She added androgynous to the masculine and feminine identities

Question 3

How is androgyny linked to better mental well-being?

Answer 3

• Bem suggested that being high in androgyny was linked to greater psychological well-being
• Androgynous individuals would be better equipped to cope with a range of situations, as men and women should adopt a variety of characteristics that suit their personality, not their gender

Question 4

Outline how androgyny can be measured

Answer 4

• Bem devised a scale for measuring androgyny, BSRI (Bem Sex Role Inventory).
• This was the first systematic attempt to measure androgyny and used a 7 point Likert scale (where 1 is true, 7 is never true) of 60 traits (20 masculine, 20 feminine, 20 neutral) which produced numerical scores.

Question 5

Describe the different results for the BSRI

Answer 5

• Individuals were categorised as masculine (high masculine score, low feminine score), feminine (low masculine score, high feminine) and androgynous (high ratio of masculine to feminine traits)
• The undifferentiated category (low scores of masculine and feminine) was added after Spence et al pointed out Bem hadn’t identified another kind of androgyny, where a person is neither masculine or feminine

Question 6

Give evaluation for Bem’s theory of androgyny (challenges to how androgynous people are more psychologically healthy)

Answer 6

• Adams and Sherer claims individuals with more masculine traits will be better adjusted as these traits are more valued in western society, contradicting Bem’s claim
• Suggests masculine traits may lead to better psychological health as you’re able to cope better in western society

Question 7

Give evaluation for Bem’s theory of androgyny (BSRI lacks validity)

Answer 7

• The BSRI is based on desirable traits for men and women in the 1970s, who had stereotyped views on gender and attitudes have changed.
• e.g. Hoffman and Borders asked 400 undergraduates to rate items on the BSRI as masculine or feminine and found that only 2 terms were still seen as masculine and feminine. All other terms failed to reach a 75% agreement level, suggesting the BSRI is not relevant today and lacks temporal validity
• Furthermore, the scale was devised by a panel of all American judges so their notions of masculinity and femininity may not be shared across cultures, so the BSRI may be culturally biased

Question 8

Give evaluation for Bem’s theory of androgyny (quantitative)

Answer 8

• A strength of Bem’s work is that androgyny is measured quantitatively
• Bem’s numerical approach is useful to quantify a dependent variable. However Spence argues that there’s more to gender than a set of behaviours, so qualitative methods offer a better way of analysing gender
• e.g. the Personal attribute questionnaire (PAQ) adds other dimensions (instrumentally and expressivity) to Bem’s masculinity-femininity dimension, which combined different scales
• Therefore both quantitative and qualitative methods may be useful

Question 9

Give evaluation for Bem’s theory of androgyny (high reliability)

Answer 9

• A strength of the BSRI is its high reliablity
• Research showed high test-retest reliability for the BSRI over a 4-week period, correlations range from .76 to .94 (Bem)
• Furthermore, a short form of the scale was developed using 30 items and had good correlations of .90 with the original. The short form improved internal reliability as less socially desirable terms were removed (gullible and childlike)
• Therefore, the high reliability of the BSRI means it produces meaningful results