Masculine and Feminine Traits on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, 1993–2012: a Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis
TL;DR: In this paper, a cross-temporal meta-analysis of U.S. college students' scores on the BSRI (34 samples, N = 8,027), examined changes in ratings on the Bem masculinity (M) and femininity scales since the early 1990s.
Abstract: The Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) is one of Sandra Bem’s most notable contributions to feminist psychology, measuring an individual’s identification with traditionally masculine and feminine qualities. In a cross-temporal meta-analysis of U.S. college students’ scores on the BSRI (34 samples, N = 8,027), we examined changes in ratings on the Bem masculinity (M) and femininity (F) scales since the early 1990s. Additional analyses used data collected in a previous meta-analysis (Twenge 1997) to document changes since the BSRI’s inception in 1974. Our results reveal that women’s femininity scores have decreased significantly (d = −.26) between 1993 and 2012, whereas their masculinity remained stable. No significant changes were observed for men. Expanded analyses of data from 1974 to 2012 (94 samples, N = 24,801) found that women’s M rose significantly (d = .23), with no changes in women’s F, men’s M, and men’s F. Women’s androgyny scores showed a significant increase since 1974, but not since 1993. Men’s androgyny remained the same in both time periods. Our findings suggest that since the 1990s, U.S. college women have become less likely to endorse feminine traits as self-representative, potentially revealing a devaluation of traditional femininity. However, it is also possible that the scale items do not match modern gender stereotypes. Future research may need to update the BSRI to reflect current conceptions of gender.
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TL;DR: Results indicate that stereotypes about communality persist and were equally prevalent for male and female raters, but agency characterizations were more complex and showed that a focus on facets of agency and communality can provide deeper insights about stereotype content than afocus on overall agency and Communality.
Abstract: We used a multi-dimensional framework to assess current stereotypes of men and women. Specifically, we sought to determine (1) how men and women are characterized by male and female raters, (2) how men and women characterize themselves, and (3) the degree of convergence between self-characterizations and charcterizations of one's gender group. In an experimental study, 628 U.S. male and female raters described men, women, or themselves on scales representing multiple dimensions of the two defining features of gender stereotypes, agency and communality: assertiveness, independence, instrumental competence, leadership competence (agency dimensions), and concern for others, sociability and emotional sensitivity (communality dimensions). Results indicated that stereotypes about communality persist and were equally prevalent for male and female raters, but agency characterizations were more complex. Male raters generally descibed women as being less agentic than men and as less agentic than female raters described them. However, female raters differentiated among agency dimensions and described women as less assertive than men but as equally independent and leadership competent. Both male and female raters rated men and women equally high on instrumental competence. Gender stereotypes were also evident in self-characterizations, with female raters rating themselves as less agentic than male raters and male raters rating themselves as less communal than female raters, although there were exceptions (no differences in instrumental competence, independence, and sociability self-ratings for men and women). Comparisons of self-ratings and ratings of men and women in general indicated that women tended to characterize themselves in more stereotypic terms - as less assertive and less competent in leadership - than they characterized others in their gender group. Men, in contrast, characterized themselves in less stereotypic terms - as more communal. Overall, our results show that a focus on facets of agency and communality can provide deeper insights about stereotype content than a focus on overall agency and communality.
220 citations
Cites result from "Masculine and Feminine Traits on th..."
...However, a recent meta-analysis has found that whereas women’s self-perceptions of communality have decreased over time, their self-perceptions of agency have remained stable since the 1990s (Donnelly and Twenge, 2017)....
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TL;DR: Badura et al. as discussed by the authors developed a Gender-Agency/Communion-Participation (GAP) model to understand why men tend to emerge as leaders more frequently than women.
Abstract: 1University at Buffalo 2University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign 3University ofMaryland 4NorthwesternUniversity Correspondence KatieBadura,DepartmentofOrganizationand HumanResources,University atBuffalo, School ofManagement, 261JacobsManagementCenter, Buffalo,NY14260-4000. Email: katienib@buffalo.edu Abstract Research has shown that men tend to emerge as leaders more frequently than women. However, societal role expectations for both women and leaders have changed in the decades since the last empirical review of the gender gap in leader emergence (Eagly & Karau, 1991). We leverage meta-analytic evidence to demonstrate that the gender gap has decreased over time, but a contemporary gap remains. To understand why this gap in leader emergence occurs, we draw on social role theory to develop a Gender-Agency/Communion-Participation (GAP) Model—an integrative theoretical model that includes both trait and behavioral mechanisms. Specifically, we examine a sequence of effects: from gender to agentic and communal personality traits, from these traits to behavioral participation in group activities, and ultimately from participation to leader emergence. Themodel is tested using original meta-analyses of the personality andbehavioralmechanisms (coding 1,632effect sizes total). Gender differences in leadership emergence are predominately explained by agentic traits (positive) and communal traits (negative), both directly and through themechanismof participation in group discussions. In addition, several paths in the theoretical model are moderated by situational contingencies. Our study enhances knowledge of the mechanisms and boundary conditions underlying the gender gap in leader emergence.
110 citations
Cites background from "Masculine and Feminine Traits on th..."
...Indeed, research confirms that stereotypes of women appear to be shifting to reflect more agentic (stereotypically masculine) content (Diekman & Eagly, 2000), and women's agentic trait levels increased between 1974 and 2012 (Donnelly & Twenge, 2016)....
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02 May 2017
TL;DR: This paper investigates whether it is possible for personas to encourage product designers to engage with personas while at the same avoiding promoting gender stereotyping through a new approach to personas: one that includes multiple photos for a single persona.
Abstract: Personas often aim to improve product designers' ability to "see through the eyes of" target users through the empathy personas can inspire - but personas are also known to promote stereotyping. This tension can be particularly problematic when personas (who, of course as "people" have genders) are used to promote gender inclusiveness - because reinforcing stereotypical perceptions can run counter to gender inclusiveness. In this paper we explicitly investigate this tension through a new approach to personas: one that includes multiple photos (of males and females) for a single persona. We compared this approach to an identical persona with only one photo using a controlled laboratory study and an eye-tracking study. Our goal was to answer the following question: is it possible for personas to encourage product designers to engage with personas while at the same avoiding promoting gender stereotyping? Our results are encouraging about the use of personas with multiple pictures as a way to expand participants' consideration of multiple genders without reducing their engagement with the persona.
74 citations
Cites result from "Masculine and Feminine Traits on th..."
...To elicit the extent to which the participants were stereotyping, we compared the scores of the BSRI and the SCM with results found in representative samples: For the BSRI the test values were based on Donnelly and Twenge [25] who found women’s feminine role at M = 5.0, women’s masculine role at M= 4.9, men’s feminine role at M = 4.6, men’s masculine role at M = 5.1....
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...To elicit the extent to which the participants were stereotyping, we compared the scores of the BSRI and the SCM with results found in representative samples: For the BSRI the test values were based on Donnelly and Twenge [25] who found women’s feminine role at M = 5....
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TL;DR: It is concluded that gender differences in the initiation of negotiation exist, but they are small and context-bound.
Abstract: Gender differences in the initiation of negotiation have been suggested to reinforce unequal distributions of resources between men and women. Because previous research had yielded heterogeneous results, the authors conducted a meta-analysis investigating gender differences in initiating negotiation. On the basis of social role theory, they hypothesized that women are less likely to initiate negotiations than men, but also that the effect varies depending on characteristics of the immediate negotiation situation and the wider societal context. The meta-analysis comprised 55 effect sizes with 17,504 individuals, including both students and employees. A random-effects model confirmed that women were indeed less likely to initiate negotiations than men (g = 0.20). Additional moderator analyses, tested with mixed-effects models and metaregressions, revealed that gender differences were smaller when situational ambiguity regarding the appropriateness of negotiating was low rather than high as well as when situational cues were more consistent with the female gender role than with the male gender role. Gender differences decreased by year of publication (from 1977 to 2016) but were unrelated to the degree of gender inequality in the countries in which the studies were conducted. The authors conclude that gender differences in the initiation of negotiation exist, but they are small and context-bound. Finally, they discuss mechanisms that alter the gender difference with a particular focus on potential starting points for practical interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record
73 citations
Cites background from "Masculine and Feminine Traits on th..."
...The male and the female roles were assumed to have become more aligned over time, resulting in decreasing gender differences (e.g., Donnelly & Twenge, 2017; Twenge, 1997, 2001)....
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...As women strengthen their agency by increasingly occupying new roles, the expression of agency is becoming part of the female gender role (Donnelly & Twenge, 2017; Twenge, 1997, 2001; Wood & Eagly, 2010)....
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References
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Book•
01 Dec 1969TL;DR: The concepts of power analysis are discussed in this paper, where Chi-square Tests for Goodness of Fit and Contingency Tables, t-Test for Means, and Sign Test are used.
Abstract: Contents: Prefaces. The Concepts of Power Analysis. The t-Test for Means. The Significance of a Product Moment rs (subscript s). Differences Between Correlation Coefficients. The Test That a Proportion is .50 and the Sign Test. Differences Between Proportions. Chi-Square Tests for Goodness of Fit and Contingency Tables. The Analysis of Variance and Covariance. Multiple Regression and Correlation Analysis. Set Correlation and Multivariate Methods. Some Issues in Power Analysis. Computational Procedures.
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TL;DR: Erikson as mentioned in this paper describes a process that is located both in the core of the individual and in the inner space of the communal culture, and discusses the connection between individual struggles and social order.
Abstract: Identity, Erikson writes, is an unfathomable as it is all-pervasive. It deals with a process that is located both in the core of the individual and in the core of the communal culture. As the culture changes, new kinds of identity questions arise-Erikson comments, for example, on issues of social protest and changing gender roles that were particular to the 1960s. Representing two decades of groundbreaking work, the essays are not so much a systematic formulation of theory as an evolving report that is both clinical and theoretical. The subjects range from "creative confusion" in two famous lives-the dramatist George Bernard Shaw and the philosopher William James-to the connection between individual struggles and social order. "Race and the Wider Identity" and the controversial "Womanhood and the Inner Space" are included in the collection.
14,906 citations
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01 Jan 1878
TL;DR: The Red River of the North basin of the Philippines was considered a part of the Louisiana Purchase by the United States Department of Commerce in the 1939 Census Atlas of the United Philippines as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: 1 Includes drainage basin of Red River of the North, not a part of any accession, but in the past sometimes considered a part of the Louisiana Purchase. i Includes Baker, Canton, Enderbury, Rowland, Jarvis, Johnston, and Midway Islands; and also certain other outlying islands (21 square miles). 3 Commonwealth of the Philippines, Commission of the Census; 1939 Census, Census Atlas of the Philippines. Source: Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.
10,650 citations
TL;DR: A new sex-role inventory is described that treats masculinity and femininity as two independent dimensions, thereby making it possible to characterize a person as masculine, feminine, or "androgynous" as a function of the difference between his or her endorsement of masculine and feminine personality characteristics.
Abstract: This article describes the development of a new sex-role inventory that treats masculinity and femininity as two independent dimensions, thereby making it possible to characterize a person as masculine, feminine, or "androgynous" as a function of the difference between his or her endorsement of masculine and feminine personality characteristics. Normative data are presented, as well as the results of various psychometric analyses. The major findings of conceptual interest are: (a) the dimensions of masculinity and femininity are empirically as well as logically independent; (6) the concept of psychological androgyny is a reliable one; and (c) highly sex-typed scores do not reflect a general tendency to respond in a socially desirable direction, but rather a specific tendency to describe oneself in accordance with sex-typed standards of desirable behavior for men and women. Both in psychology and in society at large, masculinity and femininity have long been conceptualized as bipolar ends of a single continuum; accordingly, a person has had to be either masculine or feminine, but not both. This sex-role dichotomy has served to obscure two very plausible hypotheses: first, that many individuals might be "androgynous" ; that is, they might be both masculine and feminine, both assertive and yielding, both instrumental and expressive—depending on the situational appropriateness of these various behaviors; and conversely, that strongly sex-typed individuals might be seriously limited in the range of behaviors available to them as they move from situation to situation. According to both Kagan (1964) and Kohlberg (1966), the highly sex-typed individual is motivated to keep his behavior consistent with an internalized sex-role standard, a goal that he presumably accomplishes by suppressing any behavior that might be con
7,984 citations
TL;DR: Contrary to antipathy models, 2 dimensions mattered, and many stereotypes were mixed, either pitying (low competence, high warmth subordinates) or envying (high competence, low warmth competitors).
Abstract: Stereotype research emphasizes systematic processes over seemingly arbitrary contents, but content also may prove systematic. On the basis of stereotypes' intergroup functions, the stereotype content model hypothesizes that (a) 2 primary dimensions are competence and warmth, (b) frequent mixed clusters combine high warmth with low competence (paternalistic) or high competence with low warmth (envious), and (c) distinct emotions (pity, envy, admiration, contempt) differentiate the 4 competence-warmth combinations. Stereotypically, (d) status predicts high competence, and competition predicts low warmth. Nine varied samples rated gender, ethnicity, race, class, age, and disability out-groups. Contrary to antipathy models, 2 dimensions mattered, and many stereotypes were mixed, either pitying (low competence, high warmth subordinates) or envying (high competence, low warmth competitors). Stereotypically, status predicted competence, and competition predicted low warmth.
5,411 citations