Gender: Androgyny

Question 1

What is androgyny?

Answer 1

It displaying a balance of masculine and feminine traits in one’s personality.

Question 2

What is the BSRI?

Answer 2

“Bem sex role inventory”- created by Sandra Bem as a way of measuring androgyny. Scale presents 20 traits that are seen as masculine/feminine and also 20 neutral traits. Respondents had to rate themselves on a 7-point rating scale for each item.

Question 3

A03- strength, quantitative approach

Answer 3

uses a quantitative approach so it allows us to quantify a dependent variable.
However, Spence argues there is more to gender than a set of behaviours typical of one gender or the other so qualitative methods would be better

Question 4

A03- strength, valid and reliable

Answer 4

Valid and reliable- was developed by asking 50 male/female to rate 200 traits in terms of how masculine or feminine it is.
BSRI was piloted over a 1000 students which demonstrated test-retest validity.

Question 5

A03-limitation, self-awareness

Answer 5

BSRI may not have insight to their degree of masculinity/femininity or adrogyny. Asking people to rate themselves on a questionnaire requires them to have a good understanding of their personality and behaviour which they may not have.
Furthermore, the questionnaire is heavily subjective and people’s application of the 7-point scale may differ.