Course:PSYC305/2013ST2/ClassProject/2.1 Introduction - History

History of Measuring Gender as a Personality Trait

Gender is a socioculturally defined theoretical construct of what it means to be a man or woman. It refers to a broad collection of personality characteristics, beliefs, and behaviors that are understood to be more “appropriate” for one sex than for the other (Unger, 1990). Gender itself is not generally classified as a personality trait, although it incorporates a broad spectrum of characteristics that are, with femininity and masculinity being the most prominent. The masculinity dimension contains items reflecting assertiveness, boldness, dominance, self-sufficiency, and instrumentality while the femininity dimension contains items that reflect nurturance, expression of emotion, and empathy. Gender is differentiated from sex, in that sex is determined by the physical attributes an individual is born with whereas gender is the characteristics an individual identifies with (Unger, 1990). Gender being socially constructed, is therefore a malleable feature that is context dependent. In other words, masculinity and femininity will change in accordance with time and place (Smiler & Epstein, 2010). For instance, what might have been seen as a masculine trait in one culture, may be viewed as a more feminine quality in another culture, and what may have been viewed as exclusively feminine in the past may be considered masculine at present or in the future. At a time when sex differences were not paid much attention to, the publishing of The Psychology of Sex Differences (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974), which drew several conclusions about the differences between men and women, triggered much interest in sex differences and its role in an individual's personality (Larsen & Buss, 2010). This in turn caused significant changes to the field of psychology, where journals began requiring study authors to calculate and report sex differences, a previously neglected endeavour, and emphasizing the need to measure sex differences (Larsen & Buss, 2010).

Measuring Gender as Independent Dimensions:

One of the earlier attempts at measuring gender as a personality trait was included in the California Psychological Inventory (Gough, 1960), which contained a femininity/masculinity scale amongst 19 different scales measuring varying aspects of personality traits. Since there was a single scale for femininity/masculinity, it would be considered a single dimensionality scale meaning it is impossible to score high in both masculine and feminine traits. Beginning with the feminist movement, the notion that gender was a single dimension began to lose ground and the new concept of two independent dimensions gained supporters (Larsen & Buss, 2010). These dimensions were developed using methods measuring traits to analyze the personality of individuals. The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) (Bem, 1974), is a measure that identifies the level of desirability behind a given characteristic that a man or a woman possesses. Intended originally to measure the internalization of societal prescriptions the studies documented the content of those prescriptions (Prentice & Carranza, 2002). The inventory consists of 20 desirable descriptive items each for femininity and masculinity, as well as 20 neutral items. Through the influence of work from Parsons and Bales (1955) masculinity seems to measure aspects of instrumentality, while femininity relates to measures of expressiveness. Included within the 20 masculine desirability items are concepts reflecting assertiveness, boldness, dominance, and self-sufficiency. Likewise, the feminine descriptive items reflect nurturance, expression of emotion, and empathy. Gender difference can be described on a multidimensional scale, which contains masculine, feminine, androgynous and undifferentiated classifications. The concept of androgyny was described as measuring high on both masculinity and femininity traits, while undifferentiated individuals would score low on both masculine and feminine characteristics. The findings suggest that there is a small, insignificant correlation between what characteristics one sex chooses for the same sex compared to what desirable characteristics they choose for the opposite sex (Smiler & Epstein, 2010). In other words, one sex selected the same desirable traits for both sexes – they did not pick certain traits for the same sex and other traits for the opposite sex.

Furthermore, the second trait measure used to classify whether an individual fit into masculine or feminine classifications is the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) (Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1974). This method of measure involves selecting 24 personality characteristics from 155 items. Each participant then rates the 24 items on two aspects: firstly, characteristics are rated on how well it fits a masculine or feminine ideal, followed by a self rating of how they see these characteristics in themselves. From conducting this study, they were able to view the top 55 characteristics that exhibit the strongest gender difference, which was later minimized to 24 items. Therefore, the recent PAQ measure consists of 24 items – eight items pertain to the masculinity scale (such as superior, independent, and competitive), eight items make up the femininity scale (such as emotional, gentle, and understanding), and finally, eight items are a part of the bipolar masculinity-femininity scale (such as aggressive, security, and excitability)(Smiler & Epstein, 2010; Spence et al., 1974). The final items that are included measure different aspects of an individual's personality, for example, questions assessing a person's aggressiveness, independence, or passivity. A study using the PAQ reveals that gender differences are present but they have significantly weak correlations between the masculinity and femininity scales.

One study that focused on gendered behavior and sex roles included the Sex Role Behavior Scale (Orlofsky, Ramsden, & Cohen, 1982). Three separate scales were created for both male and female valued behaviors (valued more for one gender over the other, but still important for both) and gender specific traits (highly valued for one gender or the other). Each scale focused on subscale topics regarding recreational activities, vocational interests, social dating behavior, and marital behavior (i.e. 12 scales in total). Results from the study report a moderate correlation between males and being much more likely to display or participate in more male valued behavior and male sex specific behavior. Likewise females were significantly more likely to report displaying more female valued and female sex specific behaviors. The one exception was male valued vocational interests, where men and women obtained similar scores.

Gender Role Conflict and Gender Roles Stress:

The second measure that aids in assessing gender-related constructs is gender role conflict and stress. Smiler and Epstein (2010) explain that the purpose of this measure is to examine how an individual’s adherence to traditional values and beliefs about gender roles has impacted their stress level. It is implied that when individuals choose their identity as either being masculine or feminine, then the repercussions of their choice leads to gender-specific stress. Therefore, Smiler and Epstein (2010) have reviewed three scales that measure for this construct: Gender Role Conflict Scale (GRCS), Masculine Gender Role Stress Scale (MGRS), and Feminine Gender Role Stress Scale (FGRS).

The GRCS is a 37 item scale that accounts for four areas of masculinity and for gender role strain (Smiler & Epstein, 2010). Gender role strain is measured by restricting men to behave in unhealthy patterns in the four areas of masculinity, which are as follows: Success, Power, and Competition (SPC); Restrictive Emotionality (RE); Restrictive Affectionate Behaviour between Men (RABBM); and Conflicts between Work and Family Roles (CBWFR) (Smiler & Epstein, 2010). This method is used in conjunction with the PAQ. Ultimately, the PAQ scores allowed the researchers to classify men into one of four groups: androgynous, masculine, feminine, or undifferentiated. Subsequently, the GRCS scores are compared with the PAQ scores, and they reveal that there are significant group differences for three (SPC, RE, RABBM) of the masculinity areas (Smiler & Epstein, 2010). This means that each of the four groups of men (androgynous, feminine, masculine, and undifferentiated) exhibit differences in their idea of what a restrictive, masculine gender role entails. Consequently, each group experiences gender conflict differently, which was illustrated by the group differences in SPC, RE, and RABBM.

The next method of measure, the MGRS, is not as popular as the GRCS, but is still used. This particular scale examines the negative effects that are associated with men being reliant on masculine gender roles, as well as their interest in abiding by the ideal masculine image or role (Smiler & Epstein, 2010). Smiler and Epstein (2010) describe this scale as containing 40 items, which are divided into five subscales that are intended to measure men’s stress level as a result of: Physical Inadequacy, Expressing Emotion, Subordination to Women, Intellectual Inferiority, and Performance Failure. The researchers found that this scale was unable to reliably discriminate between men and women (Smiler & Epstein, 2010). However, it did show that men report higher masculine gender role stress compared to women. Furthermore, researchers attempted to replicate these findings on a Chinese sample (in order to compare it to the Canadian sample), but were unsuccessful in finding supporting results (Smiler & Epstein, 2010). Consequently, this may denote a cultural variance or merely an issue with the MGRS because of these mixed results.

Finally, the FGRS is the counterpart to the MGRS, but instead contains 39 items that are in the form of open-ended questions and interviews (Smiler & Epstein, 2010). This scale measures five situations in which women are required to act in an opposite manner of the traditional feminine gender roles, and thus, inflicts stress and anxiety upon them (Smiler & Epstein, 2010). They explain that an exploratory factor analysis revealed five situational factors: Fear of Unemotional Relationships, Fear of Physical Unattractiveness, Fear of Victimization, Fear of Behaving Assertively, and Fear of Not Being Nurturing. This test was conducted on both men and women, and illustrated that women scored significantly higher than men on the FGRS.

Gender differences in personality traits across cultures:

Gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders; differences are replicated across cultures for both college-age and adult samples, and differences are broadly consistent with gender stereotypes: Women reported themselves to be higher in neuroticism, agreeableness, warmth, and openness to feelings, whereas men were higher in assertiveness and openness to ideas (Costa Jr, 2001). Although women usually tend to score higher on neuroticism, one of the aspects of neuroticism in which women do not always score higher than men is anger, or angry hostility. Conscientiousness, as mentioned earlier, is another Big Five trait on which women tend to get somewhat higher scores; however, these differences do not show consistency across cultures (Weisberg, DeYoung,& Hirsh, 2011). It is worth noting however, that there is likely not a universal "core" set of "masculine" vs "feminine" characteristics and as such a bimodal scale should not be used (Smiler et al, 2010).