Androgyny in a male-dominated field: The relationship of sex-typed traits to performance and satisfaction in engineering

The relationship of sex-typed traits to performance and to satisfaction in engineering was investigated using a sample of men and women engineers with five years or less of professional work experience. Both men and women engineers high in instrumentality (androgynous and masculine) reported greater levels of supervisory and technical responsibility, salary, involvement in professional activities, and satisfaction than those low in instrumentality (feminine and undifferentiated). Expressiveness was not significantly related to any of the measures of performance or satisfaction. Although a few sex differences were found, the magnitude of the effects were generally smaller than those for instrumentality. Engineers' self-ratings of various abilities were also positively related to instrumentality. Only a small percentage of variance in the performance and satisfaction measures was accounted for by sex and sex-typed traits.