Sex-role stereotypes AO3 points

Question 1

Name a first AO3 point

Answer 1

• There is support for parental influence by Smith and Llyod in 1978
• They found that mothers treat boy and girl babies differently
• 32 mothers were videotaped playing for 10 minutes with a baby (not their own child)
• The baby was dressed as either a boy or a girl (the clothes/names were not consistent with the sex)
• Seven toys were presented (two stereotypical masculine, two stereotypical feminine and three neutral)
• if a mother thought she was playing with a boy she verbally encouraged more motor activity and offered gender appropriate toys

Question 2

Name a second AO3 point:

Answer 2

• Positive correlation between androgyny and psychological health
• Prakash et al in 2010 tested 100 married females in India.
• They were tested on masculinity/femininity and a range of outcomes measures related to health: physical health, depression, anxiety and perceived stress.
• Masculinity/femininity was measured using the personal attribute
• females with high masculinity scores had lower depression scores, whereas those with high femininty scores had higher depression scores.

Question 3

Name a third AO3 point:

Answer 3

• a strength of the BSRI is its high reliability
• research has demonstrated high test-retest reliability for the BSRI over a four-week period; correlations range from .76 to .94 (Bem 1981)
  High reliability is beneficial as we can be sure that there is a cause and effect relevant to the construct being made

Question 4

Name a fourth AO3 point:

Answer 4

• The BSRI may have an intervening variable. Self-esteem as most of the adjectives on the list are socially desirable therefore, someone who scored high on both masculinity and femininity are more likely to have higher self-esteem. This suggests that the test doesn’t measure androgyny rather self-esteem
• low internal validity

Question 5

Name a fifth AO3 point:

Answer 5

• BSRI lacks temporal validity
• word lists were selected in the 70s, and people’s attitudes have changed
• Hoffman and Borders in 2001 asked 400 undergraduates to rate the items on the BSRI as masculine and feminine and found that only two items were still endorsed as masculine and feminine adjectives all other terms failed to reach a 75% agreement level.