Androgyny and the BRSI

  • Androgyny: describes a person who, from a psychological standpoint, displays a balance of both ‘masculine’ and feminine’ characteristics.

    • e.g. a woman who enjoys playing football, actively researches the latest sports, and who may also be aggressive

  • Can be viewed from two perspectives - personality and appearance.

Bem’s BSRI

  • 1974

  • 20 items - male characteristics, 20 items - female characteristics, 20 items - androgynous characteristics

  • Self report 7 point Likert scale

  • Participants rate own personality, then measured across two dimensions of androgyny

  • Undifferentiated was added in 1981

  • Created to challenge belief that if an individual did not behave as expected of their gender, sign of poor mental health - Bem believed androgynous people had healthiest psychological state

  • 100 undergraduate students at Stanford

+

Evidence supporting reliability and validity. Pilot study of 1000 students mostly agreed with student’s own perception of their personality - BSM measures what it intends to measure - high validity

Tested again 1 month later - results the same - not restricted to time - test/retest reliability

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Methodological issue - self-report so very subjective and so each individual would have differing opinions about the extent t which they are androgynous - unreliable measure of personality. Gender considered social construct - so is androgyny

BSRI could be considered an over-simplification of gender - Golombok and Fivush (1994).

  • Suggested BSRI doesn’t consider smaller but still important aspects of behaviour and androgyny, e.g. interests

PAQ could be more suitable (Personal Attribute Questionnaire)

  • Uses more personal dimensions i.e. expressivity and instrumentality