The measurement of psychological androgyny.

TLDR

Masculinity and femininity have long been treated as opposite ends of a single continuum, obscuring the possibility that many individuals may be androgynous—possessing both masculine and feminine traits depending on context—and that highly sex‑typed individuals may be limited in behavioral flexibility. This article develops a new sex‑role inventory that treats masculinity and femininity as independent dimensions, allowing individuals to be classified as masculine, feminine, or androgynous based on the difference between their endorsement of masculine and feminine personality characteristics. Normative data and psychometric analyses demonstrate that masculinity and femininity are empirically and logically independent, that psychological androgyny is a reliable construct, and that highly sex‑typed scores reflect adherence to sex‑typed standards rather than social desirability.

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