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This article describes the development of a new sex-role inventory that treats
masculinity and femininity as two independent dimensions, thereby making it
possible to characterize a person as masculine, feminine, or "androgynous" as
a function of the difference between his or her endorsement of masculine and
feminine personality characteristics. Normative data are presented, as well as
the results of various psychometric analyses. The major findings of conceptual
interest are: (a) the dimensions of masculinity and femininity are empirically
as well as logically independent; (6) the concept of psychological androgyny
is a reliable one; and (c) highly sex-typed scores do not reflect a general
tendency to respond in a socially desirable direction, but rather a specific
tendency to describe oneself in accordance with sex-typed standards of desirable
behavior for men and women.
Both in psychology and in society at large, androgynous, self-concept might allow an in-
masculinity and femininity have long been dividual to freely engage in both "masculine"
conceptualized as bipolar ends of a single and "feminine" behaviors.
continuum; accordingly, a person has had to The current research program is seeking to
be either masculine or feminine, but not both. explore these various hypotheses, as well as to
This sex-role dichotomy has served to obscure provide construct validation for the concept
two very plausible hypotheses: first, that of androgyny (Bern, 1974). Before the re-
many individuals might be "androgynous"; search could be initiated, however, it was first
that is, they might be both masculine and necessary to develop a new type of sex-role
feminine, both assertive and yielding, both inventory, one that would not automatically
instrumental and expressivedepending on build in an inverse relationship between mas-
the situational appropriateness of these vari- culinity and femininity. This article describes
ous behaviors; and conversely, that strongly that inventory.
sex-typed individuals might be seriously lim- The Bern Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) con-
ited in the range of behaviors available to tains a number of features that distinguish it
them as they move from situation to situa- from other, commonly used, masculinity-
tion. According to both Kagan (1964) and femininity scales, for example, the Mascu-
Kohlberg (1966), the highly sex-typed indi- linity-Femininity scale of the California Psy-
vidual is motivated to keep his behavior con- chological Inventory (Gough, 1957). First, it
sistent with an internalized sex-role standard, includes both a Masculinity scale and a Femi-
a goal that he presumably accomplishes by ninity scale, each of which contains 20 per-
suppressing any behavior that might be con- sonality characteristics. These characteristics
sidered undesirable or inappropriate for his are listed in the first and second columns of
sex. Thus, whereas a narrowly masculine self- Table 1, respectively. Second, because the
concept might inhibit behaviors that are BSRI was founded on a conception of the
stereotyped as feminine, and a narrowly femi- sex-typed person as someone who has in-
nine self-concept might inhibit behaviors that ternalized society's sex-typed standards of
are stereotyped as masculine, a mixed, or desirable behavior for men and women,
!This research was supported by IROIMH 21735 these personality characteristics were se-
from the National Institute of Mental Health. The lected as masculine or feminine on the
author is grateful to Carol Korula, Karen Rook, basis of sex-typed social desirability and
Jenny Jacobs, and Odile van Embden for their help not on the basis of differential endorse-
in analyzing the data,
2
Requests for reprints should be sent to Sandra ment by males and females as most other
L. Bern, Department of Psychology, Stanford Uni- inventories have done. That is, a character-
versity, Stanford, California 9430S. istic qualified as masculine if it was judged
155
156 SANDRA L. BEM
TABLE t
ITEMS ON THE MASCULINITY, FEMININITY, AND SOCIAL DESIRABILITY SCALES OF THE BSRI
Note. The number preceding each item reflects the position of each adjective as it actually appears on the Inventory.
to be more desirable in American society for tive traits and behaviors (Barry, Bacon, &
a man than for a woman, and it qualified as Child, 1957; Erikson, 1964; Parsons & Bales,
feminine if it was judged to be more desirable 19SS). In general, masculinity has been asso-
for a woman than for a man. Third, the ciated with an instrumental orientation, a
BSRI characterizes a person as masculine, cognitive focus on "getting the job done";
feminine, or androgynous as a function of the and femininity has been associated with an
difference between his or her endorsement of expressive orientation, an affective concern
masculine and feminine personality charac- for the welfare of others.
teristics. A person is thus sex typed, whether Accordingly, as a preliminary to item selec-
masculine or feminine, to the extent that this tion for the Masculinity and Femininity
difference score is high, and androgynous, to scales, a list was compiled of approximately
the extent that this difference score is low. 200 personality characteristics that seemed to
Finally, the BSRI also includes a Social the author and several students to be both
Desirability scale that is completely neutral positive in value and either masculine or
with respect to sex. This scale now serves feminine in tone. This list served as the pool
primarily to provide a neutral context for from which the masculine and feminine char-
the Masculinity and Femininity scales, but it acteristics were ultimately chosen. As a pre-
was utilized during the development of the liminary to item selection for the Social
BSRI to insure that the inventory would not Desirability scale, an additional list was com-
simply be tapping a general tendency to en- piled of 200 characteristics that seemed to be
dorse socially desirable traits. The 20 charac- neither masculine nor feminine in tone. Of
teristics that make up this scale are listed in these "neutral" characteristics, half were
the third column of Table 1. positive in value and half were negative.
Because the BSRI was designed to mea-
ITEM SELECTION sure the extent to which a person divorces
Both historically and cross-culturally, mas- himself from those characteristics that might
culinity and femininity seem to have repre- be considered more "appropriate" for the
sented two complementary domains of posi- opposite sex, the final items were selected
THE MEASUREMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ANDROGYNY 157
TABLE 2
MEAN SOCIAL DESIRABILITY RATINGS OF THE MASCULINE, FEMININE, AND NEUTRAL ITEMS
ynous" sex role thus represents the equal for the Stanford sample and .86 for the
endorsement of both masculine and feminine Foothill sample.
attributes.
The Social Desirability score indicates the Relationship between Masculinity and
extent to which a person describes himself in Femininity
a socially desirable direction on items that
As indicated earlier, the Masculinity and
are neutral with respect to sex. It is scored
Femininity scores of the BSRI are logically
by reversing the self-endorsement ratings for
independent. That is, the structure of the
the 10 undesirable items and then calculating
test does not constrain them in any way, and
the subject's mean endorsement score across
they are free to vary independently. The
all 20 neutral personality characteristics. The
Social Desirability score can thus range from results from the two normative samples reveal
them to be empirically independent as well
1 to 7, with 1 indicating a strong tendency
(Stanford male r = . l l , female r= .14;
to describe oneself in a socially undesirable
Foothill male r = -.02, female r = . 0 7 ) .
direction and 7 indicating a strong tendency
This finding vindicates the decision to design
to describe oneself in a socially desirable
an inventory that would not artifactually
direction.
force a negative correlation between mascu-
linity and femininity.
PSYCHOMETRIC ANALYSES
Subjects
Social Desirability Response Set
During the winter and spring of 1973, the
BSRI was administered to 444 male and 279 It will be recalled that a person is sex
female students in introductory psychology typed on the BSRI to the extent that his or
at Stanford University. It was also adminis- her Androgyny score reflects the greater en-
tered to an additional 117 male and 77 female dorsement of "sex-appropriate" characteris-
paid volunteers at Foothill Junior College. tics than of "sex-inappropriate" character-
The data that these students provided repre- istics. However, because of the fact that the
sent the normative data for the BSRI, and, masculine and feminine items are all rela-
unless explicitly noted, they serve as the basis tively desirable, even for the "inappropriate"
for all of the analyses that follow. sex, it is important to verify that the
Androgyny score is not simply tapping a
Internal Consistency social desirability response set.
In order to estimate the internal consist- Accordingly, product-moment correlations
ency of the BSRI, coefficient alpha was com- were computed between the Social Desirabil-
puted separately for the Masculinity, Femi- ity score and the Masculinity, Femininity,
ninity, and Social Desirability scores of the and Androgyny scores for the Stanford and
subjects in each of the two normative Foothill samples separately. They were also
samples (Nunnally, 1967). The results computed between the Social Desirability
showed all three scores to be highly reliable, score and the absolute value of the Androg-
both in the Stanford sample (Masculinity yny score. These correlations are displayed in
a = .86; Femininity a . 8 0 ; Social Desir- Table 4. As expected, both Masculinity and
ability a .75) and in the Foothill sample Femininity were correlated with Social Desir-
(Masculinity a = .86; Femininity a = .82; ability. In contrast, the near-zero correlations
Social Desirability a .70). Because the reli- between Androgyny and Social Desirability
ability of the Androgyny t ratio could not be confirm that the Androgyny score is not mea-
calculated directly, coefficient alpha was com- suring a general tendency to respond in a
puted for the highly correlated Androgyny socially desirable direction. Rather, it is mea-
difference score, Femininity Masculinity, suring a very specific tendency to describe
using the formula provided by Nunnally oneself in accordance with sex-typed stan-
(1967) for linear combinations. The reliabil- dards of desirable behavior for men and
ity of the Androgyny difference score was .85 women.
160 SANDRA L. BEM
TABLE 4
CORRELATION OF MASCULINITY, FEMFNINITY, AND ANDROGYNY WITH SOCIAL DESIRABILITY
Masculinity
M 4.97 4.57 4.96 4.55
SD .67 .69 7.62* .71 .75 3.86*
Femininity
M 4.44 5.01 4.62 5.08
SD .55 .52 13.88* .64 .58 5.02*
Social Desirability
M 4.91 5.08 4.88 4.89
SD .50 .50 4.40* .50 .53 ns
Androgyny / ratio
M -1.28 1.10 -.80 1.23
SD 1.99 2.29 14.33* 2.23 2.42 5.98*
Androgyny Difference score
M -0.53 .43 -.34 .53
SD .82 .93 14.28* .97 .97 6.08*
*t < .001.
and females scored on the feminine side of ( |*| ^ 2.02S, dj = 38, p < .OS), and they
zero. This difference is significant in both are classified as androgynous if the absolute
samples and for both measures. On the Social value of the t ratio is less than or equal to
Desirability scale, females scored significantly one. Table 7 also indicates the percentage of
higher than males at Stanford but not at subjects who fall between these various cut-
Foothill. It should be noted that the size of off points. It should be noted that these
this sex difference is quite small, however, cutoff points are somewhat arbitrary and that
even in the Stanford sample. other investigators should feel free to adjust
Table 7 presents the percentage of subjects them in accordance with the characteristics
within each of the two normative samples of their particular subject populations.
who qualified as masculine, feminine, or
androgynous as a function of the Androgyny CONCLUDING COMMENT
t ratio. Subjects are classified as sex typed, It is hoped that the development of the
whether masculine or feminine, if the An- BSRI will encourage investigators in the
drogyny / ratio reaches statistical significance areas of sex differences and sex roles to ques-
TABLE 7
PERCENTAGE OF SUBJECTS IN THE NORMATIVE SAMPLES CLASSIFIED AS
MASCULINE, FEMININE, OR ANDROGYNOUS
tion the traditional assumption that it is the ERIKSON, E. H. Inner and outer space: Reflections on
sex-typed individual who typifies mental womanhood. In R. J. Lifton (Ed.), The woman in
America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964.
health and to begin focusing on the be- GOUGH, H. G. Manual for the California Psycho-
havioral and societal consequences of more logical Inventory. Palo Alto, Calif.: Consulting
flexible sex-role self-concepts. In a society Psychologists Press, 1957.
where rigid sex-role differentiation has al- KAGAN, J. Acquisition and significance of sex-typing
ready outlived its utility, perhaps the an- and sex-role identity. In M. L. Hoffman & L. W.
drogynous person will come to define a more Hoffman (Eds.), Review of child development
human standard of psychological health. research. Vol. 1. New York: Russell Sage Founda-
tion, 1964.
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