Masculine Instrumentality and Feminine Expressiveness: Their Relationships with Sex Role Attitudes and Behaviors

TLDR

Androgyny is hypothesized to promote behavioral flexibility and higher self‑esteem. This study aims to disentangle instrumentality and expressiveness from broader sex‑role concepts to clarify their distinct contributions. The BSRI and PAQ assess socially desirable instrumental (masculine) and expressive (feminine) traits. Literature review shows only weak links between these trait dimensions and sex‑role attitudes or behaviors, offering little support for the flexibility hypothesis, yet indicating that instrumentality and expressiveness themselves have significant implications.

Abstract

Data from the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) Masculinity and Femininity scales have led to the hypothesis that androgynous individuals are more “behaviorally flexible” than others, manifesting both masculine and feminine role behaviors. Sex-role androgyny is also said to have other beneficial consequences such as high self esteem. The content of these instruments, however, is largely confined to socially desirable instrumental (masculine) and expressive (feminine) personality traits. A review of the literature indicates that these abstract trait dimensions have only minimal relationships with sex-role attitudes and sex-role behaviors not tapping instrumentality and expressiveness, and provide little support for the general behavioral flexibility hypothesis. Although PAQ and BSRI findings cannot be generalized to sex-role behaviors in general, the literature suggests that instrumentality and expressiveness per se have important implications. Appreciation of their contributions may be advanced more rapidly if these trait dimensions are disentangled from global concepts of sex-roles or masculinity, femininity, and androgyny.