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Gender Summary A* Notes, AQA Psychology
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AQA Alevel Psychology, full gender summary notes, with PEEL summaries.
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Androgyny.Spec says, ‘Androgyny and measuring androgyny including the Bem Sex Role Inventory
(BSRI).
Key Terms:
- Androgyny = displaying a balance of masculine and feminine characteristics in one’s
personality.
- Bem Sex Role Inventory = the first systematic attempt to measure androgyny using a
rating scale of 60 traits. 20 feminine, 20 masculine and 20 neutral to produce scores
across two dimensions – masculinity-femininity and androgynous-undifferentiated.
Differing androgyny.
- Androgyny, like the terms sex and gender, is useful in illustrating the difference between
common sense understanding and the way a concept is used in psychological research.
- Within psychology, androgyny refers to a personality type that is characterised by a balance
of masculine and feminine traits, attitudes and behaviours.
- Bem developed a method for measuring androgyny called ‘The Bem Sex Role Inventory’.
o She suggested that high androgyny is associated with psychological wellbeing.
o This is because individuals who are psychologically both masculine and feminine in
roughly equal measures are better equipped to adapt to a range of situations,
whereas non-androgynous people would find this difficult as they have a narrower
range of traits to draw on.
- Both men and women can be androgynous and an over-representation of opposite gender
characteristics does not make someone androgynous.
o A woman who is very masculine or a man who is very feminine would not exhibit the
necessary balance of masculine and feminine traits.
Measuring androgyny: The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI).
- Bem’s scale presents 20 characteristics that would be commonly identified as ‘masculine’
(such as competitive and aggressive), ‘feminine’ (such as gentle and tender).
o A further 20 ‘neutral’ traits are also included in the scale.
- Respondents are required to rate themselves on a seven point rating scale for each item,
where 1 is ‘never true of me’ and 7 is ‘always true of me’.
o Scores are then classified on the basis of 2 dimensions masculinity-feminity and
androgynous-unclassified.
High M, Low F = Masculine
High F, Low M = Feminine
High M, High F = Androgynous
Low F, Low M = Undifferentiated
- Masculine traits include acting as a leader, being ambitious, assertive and independent.
- Feminine traits include being affectionate, shy, loves children and understanding.
- Neutral traits include being adaptable, convectional, truthful and secretive.
,Evaluation.
Quantitative approach.
- One strength of Bem’s work is that androgyny is measured quantitatively.
- Bem’s numerical approach is useful for research purposes when it is necessary for
example, to quantify a dependent variable in a research study.
- However, Spence argues that there is more to gender than a set of one gender or
the other, so qualitative methods offer a better way of analysing gender.
- One compromise is to combine different scales, for example also using the ‘Personal
Attribute Questionarre (PAQ)’, which adds another dimension to the ‘Bem Sex Role
inventory’
- This suggests that both quantitive together with qualitative approaches may be
useful for studying different aspects of androgyny.
Valid and reliable.
- Another strength of BSRI, at the time it was developed, it appeared to be a valid and
reliable way of measuring androgyny.
- The scale was developed by asking 50 male and 50 female judges to rate 200 traits in
terms of how much they represented ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’.
o The traits that scored highest in each category became the 20 masculine and
20 feminine traits on the scale.
- The BSRI was then piloted with over 1000 students and the results broadly
corresponded with the participants own description of gender identity,
demonstrating validity.
- A follow up study, involving a smaller sample of the same students produced similar
scores when the students were tested a month later, demonstrating test-retest
reliability.
- This gives us reason to believe the test was both valid and reliable.
HOWEVER.
- The BSRI was developed over 40 years ago and the behaviours that are regarded as
‘typical’ and ‘acceptable’ in relation to gender have changed significantly since then.
- Bem’s scale is made up of stereotypical ideas of masculinity and femininity that may
be outdated.
- In addition, the scale was devised using people all from the US, and so notions of
maleness and feminist in this country may not be shared across all cultures and
societies.
- This suggests that the BSRI may lack temporal validity and generalisability, and
therefore may not be a suitable measure of gender identity today.
, Self awareness.
- One limitation of the BSRI is that people may not have insight into their degree of
masculinity, femininity or androgyny.
- Asking people to rate themselves on a questionnaire relies on people having an
understanding of their personality and behaviour that they may not necessarily
have.
- Gender is a social construct which may be more open to the interpretation than say
sex, which is a biological fact.
- Furthermore, the questionarre’s scoring system is subjective and peoples application
of the 7 point scale may differ.
- This suggests that the BSRI may not be an objective, scientific way of assessing
masculinity, femininity or androgyny.
Androgyny and wellbeing.
- Within her research, Bem placed great emphasis on the idea that androgynous
individuals are more psychologically healthy as they are best placed to deal with
situations that demand a masculine, feminine or androgynous response.
- This assumption has since been challenged though, some researchers have argued
that people who develop a greater proportion of masculine traits are better adjusted
as those are more highly valued in individualist cultures.
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