Psychological androgyny and interpersonal behavior

S. L. Bem's Sex-Role Inventory, a measure of psychological androgyny, was derived from only 2 relatively desirable dimensions of interpersonal behavior that may, or may not, implicate other less desirable traits that are sex-role stereotyped. From an item pool of 1,710 trial-descriptive adjecti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of consulting and clinical psychology 1978-02, Vol.46 (1), p.40-52
Main Authors: Wiggins, Jerry S, Holzmuller, Ana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Extraversion (Psychology)
Female
Femininity
Gender Identity
Human
Human Sex Differences
Humans
Identification (Psychology)
Interpersonal Interaction
Interpersonal Relations
Introversion (Psychology)
Male
Masculinity
Personality Inventory
Sex Factors
Sex Roles
Social Behavior
Stereotyped Behavior
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Summary:S. L. Bem's Sex-Role Inventory, a measure of psychological androgyny, was derived from only 2 relatively desirable dimensions of interpersonal behavior that may, or may not, implicate other less desirable traits that are sex-role stereotyped. From an item pool of 1,710 trial-descriptive adjectives, sets of masculinity and femininity scales were assembled that were comparable to "traditional" scales and to those developed by Bem and by A. B. Heilbrun (1976). The pool also contained items from 8 scales that form an interpersonal circumplex. 187 college students who rated themselves on the 1,710 adjectives were classified as stereotyped, near-stereotyped, or androgynous by Bem's criteria. Bem's measure of psychological androgyny appears to reflect a highly generalized personological construct that implicates both desirable and undesirable dimensions of interpersonal behavior. Heilbrun's scales are both empirically and conceptually similar to Bem's, and both scale sets differ from traditional masculinity-femininity measures. There is a possibility that androgynous men are more flexible in their interpersonal behavior than androgynous women. (25 ref)
ISSN:0022-006X
1939-2117
DOI:10.1037/0022-006X.46.1.40