sex roles and androgyny
what does sex mean
wether a person is biologically female or male based on their anatomy
what does gender mean
whether a person is a man or a woman based on their appearance, behaviour and psychological traits
what are sexrole stereotypes
the way a person behaves is due to a gender stereotype which are psychological. Most stereotypes can change over time. it happens due to socialisation processes whcih means passing on beliefs.
eval for sex roles
Sood et al found only 12% of british primary schoot teachers and 3% nursery teachers are male. This is due to how some proffessions are labelled as feminine however, it can be afrgued that this is changing and also by catergorising oocupations as either female or male it places a restrictive barrier
real life application as due to the knowlegde of sex role stereotypes, parents and other influential adults can change the mindset of young people from the beginning
what does androgyny mean
when an individual shows high characteristics of masucilinity and femininety
what is the bsri
bem sex role inventory created by sandra bem who suggested androgyny was a positive condition. bsri was made to measure androgny. Bem asked 100 american undergraduates which personality traits are desirable for men and women. she made a list of 40 traits (2o men 20 women). Later on bem added 20 gender neutral items
interpreting the bsri
by using a likert scale, indivudal was either classed as masculine, feminine, adrogynous or undifferatiated
eval for bsri
The bsri has a high external reliability as it has achieved good test-retest reliability. BSRI has produced same results multiple times on seperate occasions. however, the characteristics that was generated in the bsri was developed by americans so ir can lack population validity as characteristics may differ from other cultures.
people may interpret the bsri scale in different ways leading to a lack of internal validity. Also BSRI was made in 1974, as stereotypes change overtime, it may not generlaise to other time periods. this means bsri has a lack of temporal validity
Flaherty and Dusek did a study conducting that people who are androgynous have a higher emotional well being than those who are not adrogynous however more recent studies show that masculine traits are correlated with happiness