Androgyny and the BSRI

• Androgyny

  Describes someone who, from a psychological standpoint, displays a balance of both 'masculine' and 'feminine' characteristics
• Androgynous personality

  • A woman who enjoys playing football, who actively researches the latest sports cars and who may also be aggressive
• Androgynous appearance

  One which is obviously neither male nor female
• Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI)

  1. 20 items represent typically male characteristics

  2. 20 represent typically female characteristics

  3. 20 represent neutral characteristics

  4. Participants rate their own personality on a 7-point Likert scale

  5. Measured across the two dimensions of androgyny (or undifferentiated) and masculinity (or femininity)
• Androgyny is a type of gender

  It can be considered a social construct
• Sex

  Biologically-determined and can be objectively measured
• Bem's scale may be an unreliable measure of personality as androgyny is a subjective idea
• Evidence supporting reliability and validity of BSRI

  • Pilot study with 1000 students found the classification given by the BSM mostly agreed with the student's own Gender perception of their personality
  • The same occurred when the test was administered 1 month later, showing the characteristics identified by Bem are not restricted to each testing period
• Bem's BSRI may be considered an over-simplification of such a complex and subjective social construct as gender
• Personal Attribute Questionnaire (PAQ)

  May be a more suitable alternative to BSRI as it measures personality along different, but more 'personal' dimensions i.e. expressivity and instrumentality