Masculinity and femininity as factors in feminism

The relationship between feminism and sex roles was explored in two studies. In female college students, sex-role types were measured by Baucom's (1976) MSC and FMN scales and by Bem's Sex-Role Inventory (Bem, 1974). Feminism was measured by the Attitude Toward Women Scale (AWS, Short Form) (Spence & Helmreich, 1972) and the Women's Liberation Scale (WLS) (Goldberg, 1976). Two groups of women were predicted to be more profeminist than others. (a) those scoring high on both masculinity and femininity and (b) those scoring high on masculinity and low on femininity. Results of the study supported both hypotheses using the AWS but not the WLS. In the second study, MSC and FMN served as the basis for forming sex-role types, and feminism was measured by participation in NOW. Again, a large number of women high on masculinity and low on femininity were feminists: however, women high on both masculinity and femininity were underrepresented in NOW. Different results in the two studies are discussed in terms of the different ways that feminism was measured.     

Sex-role identity and male and female homosexuality

The incidences of sex-role outcome within homosexual and heterosexual male and female young adult samples were compared using a fourfold typology (both masculine and feminine, masculine, feminine, neither masculine nor feminine). Sex-role identity disparities between the female groups were more clear-cut; the most striking difference was the high incidence of masculinity (60%) within the homosexual female group. No significant differences for males were found, although a trend was noted toward higher incidence of femininity and lower incidence of masculinity in homosexuals. The second purpose of the study was to search for possible developmental antecedents to heterosexual deficit in unselected college samples. The same key pattern of psychometric indices was identified for males and females. Low heterosexuality and the closest approximation to the modal sex-role identity among homosexuals of their sex were found in females primarily identified with masculine fathers and low in role consistency and in males primarily identified with feminine mothers and low in role consistency.     

Response styles to sadness are related to sex and sex-role orientation

Nolen-Hoeksema's (1987) response style theory states that women ruminate on sadness more than men, and that men distract themselves from sadness more than women. These response styles are assumed to develop through the socialization of sex-appropriate behavior. The present study extended this argument by examining the relation of sex-role orientation to response styles in an adult sample. It was hypothesized that greater femininity is associated with more rumination and less distraction in response to sadness, and that greater masculinity is associated with less rumination and more distraction in response to sadness. Male and female undergraduates completed the short form of the BSRI and a coping measure. Consistent with expectations, subjects' sex-role scores were significant predictors of coping responses. Higher femininity was associated with more rumination, whereas higher masculinity was associated with more distraction. As in previous research, sex differences emerged. Female subjects relative to male subjects reported more rumination and less distraction in response to sadness. The sex-role findings are discussed in relation to current conceptualizations of femininity and masculinity measures, and in relation to sex-role differences in depression.     

Sex-role orientation and psychological well-being: Two meta-analyses

Research on the relationship between sex-role orientation and psychological well-being has been guided by one of three models. The traditional congruence model holds that psychological well-being will be fostered only when one's sex-role orientation is congruent with one's gender; the androgyny model proposes that well-being will be maximized when one's sex-role orientation incorporates a high degree of both masculinity and femininity regardless of one's gender; the masculinity model posits that well-being is a function of the extent to which one has a masculine sex-role orientation. The adequacy of these three models was tested by means of a meta-analysis of 32 studies of the relationship between sex-role orientation and depression and general adjustment. The results of the meta-analysis provided the best support for the masculinity model, with masculinity having a moderately strong relationship to both high adjustment and lack of depression and with femininity having only a small relationship to adjustment and no relationship to depression. No support was found for the congruence model.The author would like to express his appreciation to Sanford Golin and Paul Sweeney for their helpful comments on early drafts of this article.     

Sex-role orientation and fear of success: Clarifying an unclear relationship

Inconsistencies in research concerning the relationship between fear of success (FOS) and sex-role orientation may be due to the use of sex-role inventories considering masculinity and femininity as endpoints of a bipolar continuum. The Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1974), which treats masculinity and femininity as separate dimensions, was administered to 218 female undergraduates in addition to measures of FOS, achievement motivation, and performance. It was predicted that women who were androgynous (high feminine and high masculine) would evidence less FOS than women who were high masculine or high feminine. It was also predicted that women who embraced masculine characteristics (androgynous or sex-reversed) would be higher in both achievement motivation and performance than low masculine women. Both predictions were confirmed. Sex-reversed women were highest in FOS.This research was conducted with the support of a David Ross Grant from the Purdue Research Foundation to Dr. Kay Deaux and the author. Thanks are extended to William A. Fisher, Dr. Kay Deaux, and Dr. Elizabeth Farris for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. All correspondence should be addressed to Brenda Major, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo, 4230 Ridge Lea Road, Buffalo, New York 14226.     

性别角色和主观幸福感的关系模型：基于中国大学生的检验

在西方文化下,关于理想的性别角色类型主要存在三种观点：一致性模型、双性化模型、男性化模型。按照一致性模型,具有男性化特质的男性和具有女性化特质的女性是最为理想的;按照双性化模型,在男性化特质和女性化特质两个维度上得分都高的个体社会适应性最强而且心理最健康;按照男性化模型,男性化特质才是心理健康和社会适应的主要决定因素。研究运用大样本的网络数据,探讨在中国文化下,上述三个模型在中国的适用性,具体地,在性别角色类型和主观幸福感的关系上的适用性。结果发现：双性化模型得到支持,同时具有男性化特质和女性化特质的个体主观幸福感最高;男性化模型和一致性模型都没有得到支持。这表明在当代西方文化下的理想模型——男性化模型并不适用于中国,理想的性别角色模型具有文化特异性。这一结果不仅增进和丰富了人们对文化对心理和行为的影响的认识,还对我国目前青少年良好个性品质的塑造和培养以及心理健康教育的实践具有重要指导作用     

Sex-role orientation of college students and their same-sex parents

The study examined similarities and differences between sex-role orientations of college students and their same-sex parents. College undergraduates filled out the Bem Sex-role Inventory twice: once to describe themselves and the second time to describe their same-sex parents. The inventory was also used to obtain parental self-reports. Compared to their perceptions of their same-sex parents, male students described themselves as more feminine and female students described themselves as more masculine. Also, male students described their fathers as less feminine and female students described their mothers as both less masculine and less feminine than the parents described themselves. Students' femininity scores correlated significantly with the parental femininity scores both actual and perceived, however, no consistent relationship was found for the masculinity scores. Androgynous students and students with the reversed sex-role orientation perceived their parents as androgynous and reversed, respectively.     

Personality Traits in Clinical Depression and Remitted Depression: An Analysis of Instrumental-Agentic and Expressive-Communal Traits

The present study evaluated levels of instrumental and expressive traits and vulnerability to severe depression. A sample of 44 depressed psychiatric patients (i.e., 22 currently depressed patients and 22 remitted depressed patients) completed the Beck Depression Inventory and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire, a well-known personality measure that assesses masculinity (i.e., instrumentality) and femininity (i.e., expressivity). Analyses revealed that currently depressed patients, relative to the remitted depressed patients, had significantly lower levels of both instrumental and expressive traits. Overall, most currently depressed patients were characterized by unhealthy, undifferentiated sex-role self-concepts (i.e., low levels of masculinity and femininity) while the sex-role self-concepts of remitted depressed patients closely resembled those found in nonclinical populations. The current results qualify recent research on the impact of depression on personality ratings by suggesting that severe depression may contribute by lowering scores on self-report assessments of socially desirable personality traits reflecting agentic, instrumental characteristics, and communal, expressive characteristics.     

Digit ratio (2D:4D) and sex-role orientation: Further evidence and meta-analysis

Three new studies (N = 132, 623, 1112) did not yield hypothesized associations between digit ratio (2D:4D), an assumed negative correlate of prenatal testosterone, and psychometrically measured sex-role orientation (positive association with femininity, negative ones with masculinity and masculinity-femininity difference scores) among heterosexuals of either sex. Meta-analysis of the pertinent literature (N = 6311, 28 studies from 10 countries, 46% unpublished) showed only men’s (but not women’s) left-hand (but not right-hand) 2D:4D reliably related as expected (positively) to femininity. This effect was tiny (0.14% attributable variance) and possibly non-robust (crucially dependent on one large study included). Hence, the cumulative evidence does not support systematic, robust, noteworthy within-sex correlations between 2D:4D and the masculinity/femininity personality dimensions.     

Sex-role orientation as related to psychological and physiological responses during achievement and orthostatic stress

The Bem sex-role inventory was used to select, from an Irish student population, females and males who differed with regard to feminine and masculine personality characteristics. Four groups were established for each sex: (1) subjects with low scores in both femininity and masculinity, i.e., undifferentiated subjects; (2) subjects with high scores in both femininity and masculinity, i.e., androgynous subjects; (3) subjects with high scores in femininity and low scores in masculinity; (4) subjects with high scores in masculinity and low scores in femininity. The Cattell 16 PF scale showed that the undifferentiated groups were more reserved and detached and more cautious and taciturn than the androgynous groups. Each subject was exposed to mental stress in one session and orthostatic stress in another session. Mental stress was induced by five different intellectual performance tests. Males and females differed significantly only on a test of perceptual speed, with females performing better than males, as expected. The group of androgynous females was superior to all other groups on four of the five performance tasks. The group of androgynous males was not superior in terms of objective performance but reported feeling more confident andThis collaboration was made possible by a twinning grant to Dr. John Cullen and Professor Marianne Frankenhaeuser from the European Training Programme in Brain and Behaviour Research, European Science Foundation. Financial support was also obtained by grants from the Swedish Medical Research Council (Project No. 997) and the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. satisfied with their performance than most other groups, particularly the undifferentiated males. Blood pressure and heart rate were significantly elevated in all groups during both stress conditions. Heart rate was significantly higher in the high-femininity and androgynous females than in the other female groups.     

The relationship between sex role identity and marital adjustment

One hundred forty-four maritally distressed clinic couples and 138 nonclinic couples participated in a study investigating the relationship between individual sex role identity and marital adjustment. Subjects completed Baucom's (1976) masculinity (MSC) and femininity (FMN) scales, and either the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; Spanier, 1976) or the Marital Adjustment Scale (MAS; Locke & Wallace, 1959). As predicted, femininity was related to positive marital adjustment; masculinity was related as well, but perhaps to a lesser degree. Androgyny within a relationship was found to be highly desirable, whereas marriages involving undifferentiated individuals were more likely to be distressed.     

Gender congruence in confirmatory and compensatory drinking.

The relationship between gender-stereotypical traits and drinking behaviors was examined in 422 university students via both positive and negative measures of masculinity and femininity. Two canonical variates summarized the underlying relationships. The 1st canonical variate indicated that both high negative masculinity and low positive femininity predicted alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems. This behavior was labeled confirmatory drinking because it depicts a style of drinking that reinforces gender-stereotypical images about alcohol use; masculine characteristics are typically associated with high levels of alcohol consumption. The 2nd canonical variate indicated that both low positive masculinity and low positive femininity predicted problem drinking. This behavior was labeled compensatory drinking because drinkers often use alcohol to express their masculinity and femininity. The distinction between confirmatory and compensatory drinking has important implications for the development of more effective education and preventative strategies.     

Parental antecedents of sex-role orientation in college men and women

Parental modeling and reinforcement antecedents of masculine, feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated sex-role orientation were tested for 228 college men and women using self and parent versions of the Bem Sex Role Inventory and the Parent Behavior Form. Parent scale differences indicated that psychological androgyny is associated with high levels of masculinity and femininity in both parents, with high levels of warmth and involvement, particularly with the same-sex parent, and, in females, with maternal cognitive/achievement encouragement. Sex typing occurred where both parents modeled traditional sex-role attributes and, for females, with extreme closeness with father in the absence of maternal cognitive/intellectual encouragement. An undifferentiated sex-role orientation was associated with low emotional and cognitive involvement with father in males and with an undifferentiated but emotionally involved mother in females. Finally, cross-sex typing in both sexes was associated with parental rejection, low feminity in both parents, and an absence of warmth or cognitive encouragement from either parent. These findings confirm and expand those of an earlier study for androgynous subjects, but differ markedly for cross-sex-typed subjects.     

Predictors of career commitment and employment level of tertiary-educated Indonesian women

This study investigated the relationships among education, liberal sex-role values, gender-role orientation (masculinity/femininity), career commitment, and employment level for a sample of 302 married Indonesian women. All participants were tertiary educated and currently employed either as teachers in tertiary institutions or as managers in government or private enterprise. Multiple regression analysis revealed that liberal sex-role values and masculinity were significant predictors of career commitment, whereas education was the only variable to significantly predict employment level. Results are compared with previous research on predictors of career commitment and employment level in both Asian and Western cultures. Directions for further research are discussed.     

On the importance of being masculine: Sex role,attribution, and women's career achievement

The present study investigated the relation between sex-role identification and career achievement in working women. Women classified as feminine in Bem's Sex Role Inventory achieved less in their careers, attributed their career performance less to ability and effort, and had parents with lower educational expectations for them than women classified as masculine. Multiple regression analysis of a number of correlates revealed that education level and masculinity were the only significant predictors of career achievement in women. When education was not included in the regression analysis, both masculinity and the absence of femininity predicted women's achievement.This study is based on an honor's thesis by Gail E. Kettlewell and is supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant to P. T. P. Wong.     

Androgyny and creativity: a study of the relationship between a balanced sex-role and creative functioning

The relationship between creativity and androgyny was studied in 163 women and men with the Creative Functioning Test (CFT) and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). A 2 (femininity: high/low) x 2 (masculinity: high/low) x 2 (sex) ANOVA was conducted on subjects' CFT scores. A significant interaction effect between femininity and masculinity was found showing that subjects high on both femininity and masculinity (androgynous) and low on both scales (undifferentiated) reached higher CFT scores than female-typed and male-typed subjects. Further, a significant three-way interaction including sex of subject indicated that the former two-way interaction was accounted for by men only.     

Nightmare frequency and femininity/masculinity

Several large-scale studies showed that women tend to report nightmares more often than men. Despite this robust finding, empirically tested interpretations of these sex differences are lacking. Levin and Nielsen put forward the hypothesis that sex-specific socialization might be one of the risk factors for nightmare occurrence. The present findings of an online survey indicate that expressivity/femininity and instrumentality/masculinity were related to nightmare fre quency and, thus, supported this hypothesis. Since the sex difference in nightmare frequency was not fully explained by these two variables, future studies should investigate other variables--in addition to sex-role orientation--like depressive symptoms, history of sexual and/or physical abuse, ruminative coping styles, and physiological measures of processing emotional stimuli within the brain.     

Gender and self-disclosure revisited: personal and contextual variations in self-disclosure to same-sex acquaintances.

Male and female American students who differed in masculinity and in femininity self-disclosed to a same-sex stranger in contexts that made either social/expressive motives or instrumental motives salient. The results were consistent with the primary assertion that measures of sex role identity are better predictors of contextual variations in self-disclosure than is sex per se. Sex consistently failed to predict subjects' willingness to self-disclose, both within and across contexts, whereas femininity promoted self-disclosure in the context that was clearly social and expressive in character. Although masculinity failed to exert the expected facilitative impact on self-disclosure within the instrumental context, it nonetheless influenced the results; androgynous subjects, who scored high in both masculinity and femininity, were more self-revealing across contexts than was any other group.     

Sex roles and nonverbal communication skills

As a step toward understanding sex differences in nonverbal decoding and encoding abilities, the hypothesis that sex-role variables are related to these communication abilities was tested. An analysis was undertaken of 11 studies on the relationship of encoding and decoding abilities to sex roles, including several masculinity and femininity scales, a measure of attitudes toward women, and a questionnaire on sex roles in the home. Although the relationships of the masculinity and femininity measures to decoding were generally weak, more masculine people tended to be better decoders. Patterns also emerged showing that the magnitude of the correlations varied with age group, sex, sex-role scale, and channel of communication. In addition, among women, those who were more liberated according to several indices were better decoders, at least of a woman stimulus person. Differences between the sexes in encoding and decoding abilities were unaffected by partialling out the masculinity and femininity measures. A hypothesis concerning the adaptive uses of nonverbal sensitivity is advanced, as well as a hypothesis concerning overall sex differences in nonverbal communication skills.Part of this research was conducted while the authors held National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships, and was supported by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Award to the first author and by a grant from the Biomedical Research Support Program, National Institutes of Health, to The Johns Hopkins University. This paper could not have been prepared without the generosity of several colleagues and students who made their unpublished results available. These people are (alphabetically): Bella M. DePaulo, Karen I. Fischer, Judith Harackiewicz, Leonard A. Kusnitz, Carol J. Mills, James G. Simmons, Ann L. Weber, and Miron Zuckerman. In addition, Bert F. Green, Jr., Bella M. DePaulo, and Marylee C. Taylor provided many appreciated suggestions and criticisms on an earlier draft.     

Sex and sex role self-concept as correlates of career decision-making self-efficacy

The relationships between sex and sex-role self-concept on the one hand, and career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) on the other, were tested using data from 85 undergraduate business studies students. As predicted, self-concept masculinity showed a strong positive relationship with CDMSE, and self-concept femininity showed a weak positive relationship. Contrary to prediction, sex was also significantly correlated with CDMSE, though only weakly. The results add further weight to evidence that self-concept outweighs biological sex in some aspects of career development.