ANDROGYNY AND THE BSRI

Sex-role stereotype

Sex-role stereotype is a set of beliefs/preconceived ideas concerning a particular sex, for example the common sex-role stereotype is that women are bad drivers and men should acts as providers in the family.

Sex

the biological determinant of your physiological body, made up of your chromosomes, your hormones and your sexual organs - cannot change your chromosomes (Women XX, Men XY).

Gender

the way you identify, the way you are viewed and the traits associated with each gender i.e women are emotional and men are arrogant.

Androgyny

Androgyny is not about how somebody looks, it is about the behaviours and beliefs. Androgynous people tend to have a balance of male and female characteristics which make it easier for them to fit in any situation and therefore make them often more psychologically healthy.
- a combination of both male and female characteristics
- Androgyny is measured using the BSRI = The Bem Sex Role Inventory - created by Sandra Bem, it measures neutral, feminine and masculine traits.

The BSRI

the Bem Sex Role Inventory, invented by Sandra Bem, this is a scale which measures how male/female you are, gives you scores across two dimensions: masculinity, femininity score which shows if you are masculine, feminine, androgynous or undifferentiated.
The BSRI gives you a feminine, masculine and neutral score. Scores over 4 for one gender suggest you are dominant in those gender traits, scores over 4 for both genders suggest you are androgynous, no scores over 4 suggest you are undifferentiated - i.e you have no dominant gender traits.

Masculine behaviour

Some examples of typical masculine behaviour include: aggression, acting as a leader, being decisive and having a strong personality. Some examples of typical feminine behaviour include: being cheerful, being sympathetic and shy and softly spoken, some neutral traits are being reliable, happy or helpful.

AO2: Why would metrosexuals and ladettes not be classified as androgynous using Ben's criteria? (4 marks)

Ladettes and metrosexuals have to score over 4 for both genders to get the score of androgynous,
however Ladette's tend to display dominantly masculine characteristics and metrosexuals are more swaying towards female traits, therefore,
Ladettes would score over 4 in masculine traits, indicating their masculinity, and metrosexuals might score over 4 in feminine traits, indicating their femininity.
Even if they have the opposite characteristics, It would not be enough to classify them as androgynous.
Ladettes (women who behave in traditionally masculine ways, for example drinking heavily and behaving outrageously) are unlikely to score highly on the femininity score and likely to score highly on the masculine score, to be androgynous both scores as masculine and feminine need to be high - over 4.

AO3: strength: reliability/validity

P: BSRI has high reliability and good external validity
E: Reliability is good as the test/retest method was used and results were the same a month later. The external validity is good as the participants were asked to rate themselves before and then take the BSRI and the results came out as roughly similar.
J: This means the BSRI can be seen to be correct in real life.

AO3: conclusions flawed

P: Potentially there is a flaw with the conclusions
E: Bem claimed androgyny was the most psychologically healthy. However, we live in a patriarchal society where male traits have more value, so this may not be the case.
J: As such the theory may not be correct in real life (lacks real life application).

AO3: can not be quantified

P: How can something as complex as gender can be quantified
E: Gender is a global concept that encompasses a large amount of things beyond traits. Other measures such as the PAQ (personal attributes questionnaire) have tried to measure behaviours also, but this still fails to be a fully comprehensive measure.
J: It seems unlikely we will ever be able to quantify a concept like gender

AO3: outdated/ethnocentric

P: The BSRI is now outdated and ethnocentric
E: Nowadays caring about looks is something both genders do - exemplified by the adding of metrosexual to the Oxford English dictionary as it was created in the USA it may well not apply to all cultures and may suffer from an imposed etic (assuming one culture is correct).
J: Therefore it lacks historical validity (has temporal) and external validity too

AO3: subjective

P: The BSRI is too subjective
E: Ben as a female may cause social desirability bias by making female traits more appealing. Also, the way in which one person interprets a statement could vary greatly to how another does. So we do not know if we are measuring the truth.
J: Therefore the BSRI lacks internal validity.

AO3: scale

The scale was developed by asking 50 males and 50 female judges to rate 200 traits in terms of how much the traits represented "maleness" and "femaleness." The 20 traits that scored the highest in each category were used on the scale. The BSRI was then piloted with the participants' own description of their gender identity. This is a strength because these traits were valid as they accurately represent femaleness/maleness.

AO3: self-report

One weakness of the BSRI is that it relies on self-report techniques. People may not have a very accurate understanding of their own degree of masculinity, femininity or androgyny - especially as gender is a social construct which may be more open to interpretation than, say, sex (which is a biological fact). Furthermore, the questionnaire's scoring system is subjective as people's application of the 7-point scale may differ. Therefore, this shows how the use of self-report technique may have skewed the results, and given inaccurate representations of the participants, Indicating that findings may lack validity.

AO3: benefits of being androgynous

One weakness is that Sandra Bem may have been incorrect on the benefits of being androgynous. Some researchers have argued that people who develop a greater proportion of masculine traits are better adjusted as these are more highly valued in individualistic cultures. This means, in contrast to what Bem suggested, people who are more competitive and aggressive, for instance, will thrive more at work and in wider society as these behaviours are more likely to be reinforced. This suggests that Bem may have overestimated the importance of being androgynous.

AO3: reliable

Another strength of the BSRI is that it has been found reliable. A small sample of the same students were given the BSRI on 2 occasions, one month apart. Participants scores from the first occasion were compared/correlated with their scores from the second occasion. A correlation coefficient of +.90 was found. This showed that students produced similar scores, suggesting high test-retest reliability.

AO3: today

One weakness of the BSRI is that it might not be a suitable measure of gender identity today. In the 1970's, the BSRI was piloted with over 1000 students and the results broadly corresponded with the participants' own description of their gender identity. However, stereotypical ideas concerning masculinity and femininity have changed since then, thus suggesting that BSRI may lack temporal validity.

SMITH & LLOYD

Smith & Lloyd (1978) dressed babies in pink & blue clothing, regardless of sex.
Videotaped adults interactions with babies. They expected adults to assume the baby dressed in blue was a boy and pink if a girl.
Recorded which toy the adult chose to play with (male, female neutral) and the way they interacted with the child.
Compared adults' responses/ toys they used to play with the baby for babies dressed in pink and babies dressed in blue.

Smith & Lloyd (1978) dressed babies in pink & blue clothing, regardless of sex.
Babies assumed to be boys were more often given a hammer-shaped toy to play with and for girls, more likely to be given a doll.
Also responded differently to their behaviours- becoming more active when 'boys' showed increased motor activity but soothed and calmed 'girls' when showing increased activity.
Suggests sex-role stereotypes are reinforced by parents.

GENDER DYSPHORIA

STRONG, PERSISTENT FEELINGS OF IDENTIFICATION WITH THE OPPOSITE GENDER AND DISCOMFORT WITH ONE'S OWN ASSIGNED SEX.

Madhura Ingalhalikar et al

- scanned the brains of 949 young men and women.
- using hi-tech diffusion MRI imaging, they mapped the connections between the different parts of the brain.
- the researchers discovered that women's brains have far better connections between the left and right sides of the brain, while men's brains display more intense activity within the brain's individual parts, especially the cerebellum which controls motor skills.
- the conclusion from this is that a woman's brain is hardwired to cope better with several tasks at once whereas a man's brain prefers to focus on a single complex task.