Sex-role stereotypes and androgyny Flashcards
What is your biological sex?
How you were born in terms of your chromosomal pattern. XX being female, XY being male.
What is gender?
A person’s sense of maleness or femaleness, a psychological/social construct.
What are sex-role stereotypes?
A set of shared expectations within a social group about what men and women should do and think.
When are sex-role stereotypes learned?
Learned from birth as children are exposed to the attitudes of their parents and others in their society that educate them on typical gender behaviour (‘boys don’t cry’).
Outline female and male stereotypes.
Female - emotional, submissive, caring
Male - aggressive, strong, unemotional
What is androgyny?
Ando (male) and gyny (female) meaning a combination of male and female characteristics.
Who introduced the concept of androgyny?
Sandra Bem.
What did Bem suggest about androgyny and mental health?
Contradicted the idea that sex-roles were healthy for mental health. Suggested individuals should take on more masculine and feminine traits to suit their personality. Because suppressing aspects of our personality can lead to mental disorders.
How did Bem establish the BSRI (Bem Sex Role Inventory)?
180 undergrads asked to identify male and female traits. 40 items were selected - scores decipher whether you are masculine, feminine of androgynous. 20 masc, 20 fem and 20 neutral questions (rate on 7 point likert scale). High on both indicates androgyny.
(AO3) Describe methodological issues with the BSRI.
Self esteem is an extraneous variable as decisiveness will affect how extreme the rating is on the likert scale. Makes individuals appear more masculine, feminine or androgynous than they actually are - internal validity.
Self-repot techniques susceptible to social desirability bias. Traditionalist individuals may rate themselves higher on their gender’s attributes to appear ‘mentally healthy’. Internal validity again.
(AO3) Describe methodological strengths of the BSRI.
Higher test-retest reliability score over 4 weeks of 0.76 to 0.94 (investigated by Bem).
Shortened version removing socially undesirable traits (gullible, childish) had correlation with original of 0.9. Improved reliability because social desirability bias is reduced.
(AO3) Describe a real life application of Bem’s theories.
If androgyny is better for mental health, parents should raise children without imposed sex-role stereotypes and expectations. Should allow child to construct their own personality as they like - more healthy individuals. E.g. a British couple around 2012 did this, the child grew up relatively healthily. Received massive backlash from the public (‘child abuse’) suggesting the public still believe gender roles are important to mental health. Shows believers in androgyny still have work to do.
(AO3) Describe temporal validity in the BSRI.
adjectives used in BSRI were selected in the 1970s. Gender attitudes have changed since. May be less appropriate to use now - does it apply? Recent study found only 2 terms of the 40 to be endorsed as masculine and feminine. Low temporal validity and a new test may need to be made.
