Instrumental and Expressive Traits, Trait Stereotypes, and Sexist Attitudes: What Do They Signify?

TLDR

The study surveyed college students who rated typical male and female students and themselves on 22 instrumental and 16 expressive traits from the PAQ and BSRI, plus masculine/feminine identity items, and completed gender stereotype and sexist attitude measures. Significant gender stereotypes appeared on almost all I and E items, self‑report differences were found on all expressive but only 41% of instrumental items—showing women’s more agentic self‑conceptions—while the pattern of relationships among self‑report, stereotype, and attitude measures supports a multidimensional gender approach and confirms that masculine/feminine items mainly assess basic gender identity.

Abstract

College students rated the typical male and female student and themselves on 22 instrumental (I) and 16 expressive (E) items from the PAQ (Spence & Helmreich, 1978) and the BSRI (Bem, 1974), as well as on the BSRI items “masculine” and “feminine.” They also completed measures of gender stereotypes and sexist attitudes. Significant gender stereotypes were found on all but two I and E items in both genders. Significant gender differences in self-report were found on all the E items but on only 41% of the I items, confirming our hypotheses that societal changes have led women to develop more agentic self-conceptions. The pattern of relationships found between the self-report, stereotype, and attitude measures supports the utility of a multidimensional approach to gender. Responses to the items “masculine” and “feminine” confirm the implications of our hypothesis that these items primarily assess men's and women's basic sense of gender identity.