Sex and Gender, Sex Stereotypes and Androgyny Flashcards
what is sex?
- the biological difference between males and females
- assigned from conception through chromosomes
what is gender?
the psychological distinction between masculine and feminine personality traits, may not match a persons biological sex
what’s the difference between sex and gender?
sex refers to biological physical differences, whereas gender refers to how people identify
what is androgyny?
having both feminine and masculine traits
who introduced the concept of androgyny in psychology and when was it introduced?
Sandra Bem
the 1970s
what did Bem say about androgyny and mental health?
androgyny is more psychologically healthy as it avoids sex-role stereotypes
what are sex-role stereotypes?
a set of expectations, shared by a culture, of appropriate male and female behaviours
how are sex-role stereotypes acquired?
learned from birth through society implicitly and explicitly
how is androgyny measured?
using the BSRI
describe how the BSRI was developed
- Bem (1974) asked 100 American undergraduate students to list personality traits associated with each sex
- list of traits was used to develop a 60 item list (20 feminine, 20 masculine and 20 neutral)
how is the BSRI completed?
- self-report
- 7 point Likert scale
- scores calculates giving either famine, masculine, androgynous or undifferentiated
give an evaluation point of the BSRI
- high test re-test reliability
- ethnocentric
- lacks temporal validity
give an evaluation point of the concept of androgyny
- experimentally reductionist
- research evidence to support the benefits of androgyny on mental health
how does the BSRI have high test-retest reliability?
Bet conducted a follow-up study 4 weeks later and found similar results, with correlations ranging from 0.76 to 0.94
how is the BSRI ethnocentric?
- assumes the benefits of androgyny can be generalised to all cultures
- Mead found masculine traits are more desirable in New Guinea
how does the BSRI lack temporal validity?
- adjectives chose in 1970s, societal norms have changed since then
- Hoffman and Borders (2001) found all, but two, terms failed to reach a 75% agreement level on whether they were feminine or masculine
research support for the impact of androgyny on mental health
- Prakash et al (2010)
- tested 100 married women using a personal attributes scale and a range of measures related to health
- found females with high masculinity scores had low depression scores and those with high femininity scores has high depression scores
research support for sex-role stereotypes
- Smith and Lloyd (1978)
- 32 mothers offered gender appropriate toys to the baby’s and encouraged motor activities to babies dressed as boys
- adults socialise children into gendered behaviour
how is androgyny experimentally reductionist?
- too complex to be reduce to a single BSRI score
- androgynous theory is holistic
- BSRI ignores personal interests, so Personal Attributes Quiz may be better
