Sex role stereotypes

• Androgyny

  The psychological state of possessing a balance of male and female psychological characteristics
• Androgynous person

  • A man may possess the emotional skills to be caring, but also is competitive and ambitious
• Androgynous people

  • They can respond appropriately to many different situations in life
  • They can be empathetic when necessary
  • They can be competitive when another situation demands it
  • They are argued to be more mentally healthy
• BSRI

  A way of measuring the extent to which a person is androgynous, created by Sandra Bem (1974)
• BSRI

  1. Participants indicate how true a list of behaviours and characteristics is for them personally on a scale of 1 (never true) to 7 (always true)

  2. Masculine behaviours include 'aggressive', 'ambitious', 'dominant', 'assertive'

  3. Feminine behaviours include 'affectionate', 'compassionate', 'gentle', 'sympathetic'

  4. Neutral behaviours include 'adaptable', 'sincere', 'helpful', 'truthful'

  5. A high score for both the masculine and feminine items indicated androgyny in the participant
• Strength

  • When it was piloted, the results of the BSRI broadly matched with the participant’s own reported sense of gender identity, suggesting the BSRI is a valid measure of gender.
• weakness

  • It has been argued that androgyny may not be the most beneficial thing for mental health, and that having more masculine traits is more advantageous, challenging the assumptions of Bem.
• weakness

  • Assessing a person’s sense of gender by completing the BSRI reduces the complex concept of ‘gender’ to a series of numbers, therefore not reflecting the reality of gender. Also, the BSRI may be culturally and historically biased, as certain behaviours are seen as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’, which may not be true of all cultures at all times.