Sex Role Stereotypes & Androgyny

Question 1

what are sex roles?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

how do we learn sex role stereotypes?

Answer 2

both implicitly (internalisation - schema building) and explicitly through modelling

Question 3

what is androgyny?

Answer 3

that one person can display behaviours of both genders

Question 4

what was Sandra Bem’s main idea?

Answer 4

she claimed that you couldn’t reliably tell someone’s gender by a list of their behaviours alone; most people perform some non-stereotypical behaviour e.g. some men like to cook, some women like sports such as boxing or rugby. Reinforcing fixed (musturbatory) distinctions could result in lower self worth

Question 5

what was the Bem’s sex role inventory?

Answer 5

this contains 20 masc, 20 fem words and 20 neutral items, Participants use a 7-point likert scale to rate their likelihood of performing the behaviour

Question 6

how is the BSRI scored?

Answer 6

• masc - High m, low f
• fem - High f, low m
• androgyny - high ratio of m:f

Question 7

why was the BSRI criticised?

Answer 7

it described androgyny but not the opposite, this was later on added as undifferentiated, low in m and f. Lacked construct validity as she has to add another category