Masculinity, femininity, and gender [microform]
- Bib ID:
- 3287252
- Format:
- Book and Microform
- Author:
- Lowell, Nana
- Description:
- 138 p.
- Summary:
-
Masculinity and femininity have traditionally been conceptualized as opposite ends of a single bipolar dimension. Items intended to assess masculinity and femininity in traditional personality tests were selected on the basis of their ability to differentiate the sexes. Items characteristic of males were defined as masculine, and items characteristic of females were defined as feminine. Recent social trends have stimulated recognition of a greater number of shared characteristics between men and women, and the definition of masculinity and femininity based solely on gender differences has become increasingly questionable. Results of studies on the polarity and dimensionality of traditional masculinity-femininity scales suggest that masculinity and femininity may be neither bipolar nor unidimensional and several new scales have been created to assess masculinity and femininity as two independent personality traits.
A shared weakness of the recent scales is the use of item selection techniques which continue to associate masculinity with males, and femininity with females, despite the stated assumption that all individuals can and should have both masculine and feminine characteristics. The importance of this contradiction was addressed by the present study in which the relationship between gender, and masculinity and femininity in trait attribution was assessed. Four groups of subjects were asked to rate the degree to which each of a set of adjectives is characteristic of one of four undefined concepts: a "masculine male," a "masculine female," a "feminine male," and a "feminine female." Ratings for each adjective were subjected to a 2 x 2 analysis of variance and the adjectives were subsequently grouped according to the magnitude of the resulting F-statistics for main effects (psychological sex-role and gender) and the interaction.
For many items, interaction between gender and psychological sex-role was found, indicating that the trait attribution model cannot be used to define masculinity and femininity independent of gender. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were also computed among the four concepts across trait ratings to examine the overall perceived relationship between masculinity and femininity. "Masculine male" ratings correlated .30 with "feminine female" ratings rather than -1.00 as predicted by traditional M-F theorists or 0.00 as predicted by current researchers. When social desirability of the adjectives was partialled out, the correlation changed to -.31 showing a low negative perceived relationship betwen masculinity and femininity.
- Notes:
-
- (UnM)AAI8026264
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-05, Section: A, page: 2018.
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 1980.
- Reproduction:
- Microfiche. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International.
- Subject:
- Education, Educational Psychology
- Other authors/contributors:
- University of Washington
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary, dramatic or musical work
- Published status:
- Unpublished
- Creation date:
- 1980
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