Course:PSYC305/2013ST2/ClassProject/5.5 Discussion - Future Research

Suggestions for Future Research

Improvements to Our Gender Diagnosticity Measures

When determining possible future research it is crucial to refer to the limitations of our scale. In order to generate a more accurate, reliable, and valid scale, the limitations should be addressed and resolved. Addressing the limitations will ensure that our Gender Diagnosticity (GD) is controlling for confounding variables and biased results.

Sample Issues and Generalizability

To a degree, this sample group was representative of a range of ethnicity, religious belief, level of education, and personality, but lacked in the representation of gender. The ratio of individuals who reported their genders were 10 males to 50 females. Due to the limitation of equal gender representation, this questionnaire must be further assessed and administered to a larger sample with a more balanced male-female ratio. Due to the fact that the consistency/stability of this measure has not yet been thoroughly challenged and proven, and since the study is not measuring what it claims to measure, this questionnaire cannot yet be claimed as reliable or valid. In order to define this study as both valid and reliable we need to consider two things:

• That the study measures what it claims to be measuring (validity), and
• That the study will yield the same results upon retesting and when tested on other sample groups (reliability).

Reliability

The reliability of this questionnaire should be further assessed by way of the test-retest approach. Testing a sample group and allowing the same group of participants to be retested at a later time is a useful process for confirming the scale as reliable and likely to extract the same results from the same people regardless of when they are tested. Specifically when attempting to measure a trait that is expected to remain stable over time (ie. gender diagnosticity), test-retest reliability can provide valuable insight in determining the usefulness of the scale. As with any self- report questionnaire, repetition will further confirm reliability if consistent and accurate results are observed across a variety of different situations, variables and sample populations. In order to make up for the limitations of this study it is important that future replications pay specific attention to the following factors when choosing a sample group: 1) Avoid a biased sample(for example, the sample should not consist of the psychology students constructing the study) 2) The sample should be representative of both females and males (equal or close to equal number of males and females within the sample) 3) Random selection must be used to control for other variables such as ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and educational level.

Participant Bias and Method

When questionnaires ask questions which are private for a particular individual, that individual may respond in a “socially desirable” manner instead of truthfully. To answer a questionnaire in a socially desirable manner is also known as faking good. There are however possible solutions to this limitation that could be considered in future research. It is important to note however that anonymous questionnaires don’t often pose the problem of individuals answering truthfully due to the privacy of the individual being assured.

One way in which one is able to overcome the problem of individuals answering the questionnaire in a socially desirable manner is to impose a “faking good profile” (Larsen & Buss 2010). This profile is constructed to use in comparison to the responses of an individual to determine whether he or she is “faking good.”

Additionally, questions should be made as neutral as possible, so that sensitive subjects or words with negative connotations may not prompt a person into answer in a socially desirable way.

A "Bogus Pipeline" method may be used. Participants are told that either an attitude or emotion is being analyzed by a machine, or by a polygraph. However, the wires that are attached to the participant are not real. Since the participant does not know this, they will most likely answer the questions honestly.

Experimenter Bias and Content

Since the participants of the study were also the creators of the questionnaire, future uses of the GD should use samples of respondents who are independent from the development of the questionnaire. Students developed the majority of the questions individually although there was some convergence in ideas and subjects to be included, many aspects of life and lifestyles were overlooked. The questionnaire could have been streamlined more efficiently. One possible solution to experimenter confirmation bias is to develop questions from different perspectives to provide the most objective, all-encompassing questionnaire. In improving our GD, we could develop questions using either:

1. A panel consensus method, where questions are pitched and evaluated as a group or,
2. A structured Delphi method, where individuals in a panel develop their own questions, which are then consolidated and refined repeatedly until ideas are stabilized and the questionnaire is as objective, representative of different perspectives, and as flexible (eg. provides a variety of possible responses) as possible.

Language

Some questions in the GD were directed toward participants with sufficient knowledge of North American culture and a high level of English proficiency. Aside from translating the questionnaire to multiple languages, effective question development method is key to overcoming cultural and language barriers. A collaborative effort toward the development process of the questionnaire (panel consensus method or structured delphi method) will address any possible misinterpretations, cultural differences, and issues of English proficiency.

Additionally, some questions contained words and phrases that carry negative connotations. As mentioned above, the creation of objective and neutral questions is one way to address the social desirability biases that may be prompted by questions that may carry negative connotations.

Individual Life Outcomes

After finding the results of the gender and personality traits, future research can be focused on how gender and personality traits have influences on mental disorders, life expectancy, or environmental adaptation. Moreover, some other areas beside individuals’ internal traits such as marital status and numbers of children can also be investigated.

Mental Disorders

Gender and personality traits may have great influences on mental disorders. There is evidence that several mental disorders are more often diagnosed in women or in men. For example, depression and eating disorders like anorexia nervosa are mostly diagnosed in women, whereas ADHD and autism are more common in men than women. Since some mental disorders are more likely diagnosed in one gender, then gender and personality traits are probably one of the correlations or possibly causation's of mental disorders. For example concern with body image is deemed feminine on some gender scales, which may lead to either under diagnosis or under self-report. Certainly, genes are one of the factors of mental disorders, but future research based on gender and personality traits can provide more information about mental disorders. Some mental disorders are more common in single gender than others. For example, women are prone to eating disorders and depression than men. The difference in life expectancy between men and women also need to be researched on. The reason why women live longer than men has been attributed to many factors but little research has been done about it. Mental and physical adaptations in relations to gender should also be researched further. The fact that different women are more likely to be affected mentally is an indicator that the ability of different genders to adapt to the environment varies. The relationship between gender diognosticity and sexual behaviors should also be investigated. The research showed that men notice the physical characteristics of women before anything else. They are also more likely to have sex with someone they have just met. Women do not focus much on physical appearances when they meet members of the opposite for the first time. They are also less likely to have sex with someone they just met. The research should also examine the psychological mechanisms behind these revelations in relation to social, cultural or ecological factors (Larsen & Buss, 2010).

Life Expectancy

The second possible area could be life expectancy between gender and personality traits. Although there is evidence of women having longer life expectancy than men, additional information such as personality traits, culture background, food consumption, or even careers of the participants are required. More variables could be investigated because the research should not merely be based on gender differences only.

Environmental Adaptation

Both physical and mental (emotional) adaptations can be future research topics based on gender and personality traits. Since gender and personality traits have influences on whether people develop mental illnesses, then gender and personality traits must also have influences on environmental adaptation. People with better abilities to adapt might have a better coping system which helps them become less stressed. Given that stress is one of the causations of mental illness, knowing the ability of environmental adaptation is helpful to predict a person’s healthiness, and that ability can be based on gender and personality traits.

Environmental adaption, mental disorders, and life expectancy are considered to be correlated with one another. For example, if a woman has weaker environmental adaptive ability at emotional adaptation, then she might experience more stress when she faces problems; as a result, she might be more prone to developing mental illnesses. That being said, having weaker emotional adaptation might increase the chances of contracting a mental illness thus leading to a lower standard of living, which in turn might lead to shorter life expectancy. Therefore, these three topics are greatly interrelated.

Alcohol/Addiction Issues

Gender and personality traits, and their effects on addiction should be explored. People who are resilient are less likely to be dependent on a substance, whereas someone who is weak may look for something (a substance) to latch to. Moreover, it would be beneficial to measure how professions or different lines of work alongside personality traits and gender affect substance addiction. For example, comparing someone who has a high stress career versus someone with a low stress career with similar personality traits.

Impact on Family Life

Besides focusing on only individuals’ internal traits, individuals’ marital status and numbers of children could also be explored. Gender and personality traits could have influences on how individuals form their opinions on marriages or raising children.

Marital Satisfaction

There is evidence that personality dispositions can affect marriage. For instance, a couple who is both high in neuroticism has a higher chance of getting divorced because they do not trust each other (Larsen & Buss, 2009). Moreover, women are usually more likely to have lower emotional stability; therefore, they are more likely to score higher on neuroticism, which could indirectly affect marital satisfaction. Although this topic has already been investigated, more details such as how traits other than neuroticism can affect marriage could also be tested.

Number of Children

Gender and personality traits could also have effects on the number of children one might have. For example, one with high extraversion might want more children because he or she wants to have a lively family. On the other hand, one with high conscientious might want to have less children because he or she might want to invest more time on each child. Yet, these two examples have not been tested, so research could be conducted on this topic.

Creating a Standardized Gender Diagnosticity: Beyond the Binary

Since the exact classification of behaviours and traits into masculine and feminine has been and remains a “subject of some debate” (Smiler & Epstein, 2010, p.150) among the academic community, while the link between gender identity and biological sex is being constantly challenged by the representations of gender fluidity, it could be useful to explore options beyond the binary. These options may include dispensing with both strict divisions rooted in dichotomy and a scale of binary characteristics, given that there is already a lack of consensus in terms of deciding which of these better reflects reality (Larsen & Buss, 2009; Lippa & Connelly, 1990; Smiler & Epstein, 2010). Instead, future research might look into classifying divisions into a corresponding array of gender identities and representations.

Furthermore, an attempt must be made to address and minimize the effect of a multitude of factors which are independent of the main variables, but could potentially influence the result of the research. These include socio-cultural background, physical ability, geographical positionality, religious restrictions and personal beliefs. Higher sensitivity to these factors will produce more robust data and this could be another direction for the future research to explore.

Lippa notes that our gender is a “complex causal cascade” (Lippa, 2005, p. 221) that includes the influences of biological/genetic factors, family and peer influences, social and cultural influences, cognition/thought, emotions/feelings/attitudes, and behavior. The complexity lies in the interrelationships of these influences, these “parallel tracks” (Lippa, 2005, p. 221) over time; he graphically demonstrates the progression of varied influences and how they exert different pressures on us at different times in our lifespan. This reinforces the idea that a study should include as wide a demographic as possible to invite optimum data collection, and this should be reflected in the questions of a GD questionnaire. Our questionnaire is a correlative study and as such does not offer theories of causality; however, in order for the data to be relevant for future studies/meta-analyses the questionnaire must be deemed useful across the widest age and cultural range possible. As such, careful and appropriate question development that attends to inter-cultural, inter-age demographic and inter-sexual communication is essential to create responsible and valid self-reporting procedures.

Gender-Atypical Behaviour in Adolescence and Bullying

The gender diagnosticity literature has revealed that gender-atypical behaviour in early adolescence is associated with negative peer relationships, such as bullying victimization and fewer friendships (Sweeting & Young, 2004). Studies have also shown a negative relationship between childhood gender-atypical behaviour and parent-child relationships (Alanko et al., 2009; McConaghy & Silove, 1992). The results from these studies suggest that children and adolescents who display gender-atypical behaviour do not receive the same approval from their peers and parents compared to more "gender-typical" youth. Socialization theory states that parents reinforce their children for behaviour that is “masculine” (e.g. horseplay) and “feminine” (e.g. obedience, docility, cuteness) because they are conforming to the gender binary (Larsen & Buss, 2010). This theory may account for the observed relationships between gender-atypical behaviour, peer relationships and parent-child relationships.

Gender-Atypical Behaviour in Adolescence and Education

Future research may consider utilizing a gender diagnosticity approach to examine whether childhood gender-atypical behaviour is also associated with teacher-child relationships. Teachers may reinforce students not necessarily because they are conforming to the gender binary, but because certain behaviours (e.g. compliance) are more conducive to classroom teaching than others (e.g. horseplay). If this is the case, we may see different relationships for childhood gender-atypical behaviour and teacher-child relationships than what the literature has found for parent-child relationships. That is, gender-atypical behaviour in boys may be positively related to teacher-child relationships since their behaviour likely does not interrupt classroom teaching. Conversely, gender-atypical behaviour in girls may be negatively related to teacher-child relationships, as rambunctious play may disturb classroom management.

Also related to eduction, gender specific class rooms are met with polarized reception. Further research into whether they encourage gender stereotyping and as such are discriminatory, or foster academic success. Guran (2001) found that boys conceptualize better using deductive reasoning where as girls employ inductive reasoning. Future research into the cognitive preferences best predicting success across genders may prove useful.

Gender Role Conformity/Non-Conformity

Prentice and Carranga (2002) found the prescriptive quality of gender stereotypes (whose internalizations were the basis for Bem's original scale with which our results were compared for validity) tended to justify and perpetuate status quo such that traditional gender prescriptions persisted into the 21st century. What was particularly noteworthy was that the relaxed prescriptions of women meant that although they were perceived societally as equally competent, they were not expected to be (in a study conducted at Princeton University, where achievement and competence are highly valued). They found that society holds women to higher social standards and lower achievement standards which is not mirrored by perceived reality. Men were not found to have a disjunction between typicality and desirability. This 'soft bigotry of low expectations" is a form of discrimination wherein violations of expectations are met with punishment. The disconnect between perceived reality and expectation and the insidious mixed belief would benefit from further research. Perhaps research based on behavioural (observable) measures would help reconcile some of the disconnect. Given that the basis of gender diagnosicity is to predict behaviour based on group membership, measures of perceived competence and achievement may be confounded by this effect. The implications for discrimination, and public education are significant. Also persons with strongly internalized gender schema may act more in accordance with expected social constructs. Measures of internalization of societal expectations could be assessed using implicit measures such as the Implicit Associations Test (IAT) used by Greenwald and Farham (2000) used to measure self-concept and gender identity. Measuring whether the discrepancy between typicality and desirability is more pronounced in those with highly internalized schema, and whether this is seem more between sexes, within gender or in society as a whole.

Gender Diagnosticity Comparisons Between Homosexual and Heterosexual Men and Women

In future studies, we suggest Gender Diagnosticity (GD) be paired with personality traits to produce more accurate results for predictors of future outcomes. As outlined in Gender-Related Traits of Heterosexual and Homosexual Men and Women (Lippa, 2002), the occupational preferences that distinguished men from women also distinguished lesbian women from gay men.

A narrower focus on the homosexual community, or even a subset of the community (eg. only gay men), could identify GD as a strong predictor of different life outcomes due to external variables such as bullying and internal variables such as coping mechanisms.

People who deviate from socially-constructed, heterosexual gender roles are prone to stigmatization. This stigmatization leads to minority stress, which is the conceptualization of internalized homophobia, stigma, and discrimination (Meyer, 1995, p. 38). Future research could be conducted to examine how GD is related to bullying towards gay and lesbian individuals. Since individuals will differ in their response to bullying, we may go on to investigate how GD affects coping styles in cases of homophobia. One response to homophobia may be concealing one’s sexual orientation. Pachankis (2007) has found that concealing a trait that carries stigma can cause both negative psychological and physical stress on the individuals. Meyer (2003) has found that the majority of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals' stress comes from concealing their sexual orientation. We could look into how GD affects the ways homosexual individuals conceal their sexual orientation.

Gender and personality can be predictors of mental illness. Because of the increased likelihood of stigmatization, we can also study the homosexual community to identify differences or trends in the prevalence of mental illnesses due to stress or maladaptive coping methods.

Differences in coping mechanisms, lifestyle choices and individual preferences for activities/occupation distinguished between not only heterosexual men and women, and homosexual men and women, but also distinguished between heterosexual and lesbian women and heterosexual and gay men. It is also necessary not to assume that all female heterosexuals will have the same (GD) score or all the male heterosexuals will have the same (GD) scores. Future research could pair GD scores with personality traits to identify and compare predictors between and within heterosexual and homosexual groups.

Sexual Behaviour

Further investigation is needed to examine the relationship between sexual behaviours and gender diagnosticity. There was substantial significance in both male and female categories pertaining to sexual attraction, with men noticing physical characteristics of opposite sex first, d= 1.95 and likelihood of having sex with someone just met, d= 1.74, and women showing preference for older significant others with d= -2.03. Strong differences appeared in both human sexual attractions and sexual behaviours.

Evolutionary psychologists claim that differences in male and female reproductively is the “engine that drives natural selection”, and it is the psychological mechanisms which drive our selection (Buss, 1999) Mating selection is one area of that has been explored, and further, its relation to gender and personality could be revealing. One of evolutionary psychological central premises is that,‘ Manifest behaviour depends on underlying psychological mechanisms, information processing devices housed in the brain, in conjunction with the external and internal inputs-social, cultural, ecological, physiological- that interact with them to produce manifest behaviour' (Tooby and Cosmides 2005). Consequently, our behaviours reflect our ability to produce variable adaptive behaviour. Interestingly, the data which resulted from this study, brought light to seemingly accentuated male and female sexual preferences. Females seeking providers and males seeking a number of partners and a young healthy mate to produce healthy, adaptive offspring. For example, over human evolutionary history, women experience pregnancy as being expensive and time-consuming, an adaptive problem not faced by men (Buss, 2011). Gender-differentiated adaptations appear in men experiencing paternity uncertainty, which result from females having a number of sexual partners. This leads to the risk of fathering another male’s child which is also adaptively problematic for males. Naturally, it is of importance for the female to select a mate who will commit to them and father the child if she were to get pregnant (Buss and Schmitt 1993). These domains of difference between sexual adaptations are interesting to this study as domains of occupations showed considerably less correlative strength between men and women throughout.

Gender differences approaching mating have been examined in terms of the Sexual Strategies Theory, which has generated extensive empirical evidence (Buss, 2011). Here, the Sexual Strategies Theory encompasses ecological, personal and social variables built on evolutionary logic. It is through this theory that inference could be extracted in terms of gender and how it relates to personality. Specifically, how these gender-related behaviours show consistency over time, whereas occupational preferences as represented in this study may be more fluid and contextually-contingent, or determined by the flexibility of social norms over time. This study complemented Buss and Schmitt (1993)’s predictions:

1. Men will express greater desire for, or interest in, short-term mates than will women,
2. Men will desire larger numbers of sexual partners than will women,
3. Men will be willing to engage in sexual intercourse after less time has elapsed than will women, and
4. Men will relax their mate preference standards in short-term mating context more than will women.

To the extent that individuals associate with prototypical gender related behaviours shows a strong pattern with its relation to sexual behaviours. Further investigation on occupation selection in midlife comparative to occupation preference among university participants could highlight the influence of social variables and gender diagnosticity on occupational selection.

Occupational Interests

There have been studies that show that males and females differ in their vocational interests, with individual differences including abilities, upbringing education and personality traits being among these factors (Holland, 1992). Although our study showed little correlation to gender-related occupational interests, it would be beneficial to further investigate the studies that show correlations between gender-related traits and occupation. Links to vocational interest and gender-related traits have been shown to correspond significantly with gender diagnosticity measures (Lippa, 1998). Holland’s RIASEC model is designed to measure vocational interests, enlisting six types of vocations, Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional, with substantial empirical research supporting Holland’s model. In elaborating Holland’s model, it was proposed that there are two primary dimensions, which are fundamental to Holland’s model. Prediger (1982) posited that these were a People-Things dimension and an Ideas-Data dimension. Vocations involving impersonal tasks such as working with materials, tools and machines fall under the People-Things dimensions, whereas interpersonal tasks, including vocations that involve directing, teaching, caring of others falls on the opposite side of the spectrum. Vocations that heavily involve using insight, knowledge and creative capacities fall under the Ideas-Data dimension, with tasks involving data and external-related tasks including organizing numeric data and records applying to this category.

The selection of using specific measurement scales in gender-related traits is of importance. Previously used scales, including the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) and the Bern-Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) have been criticized for falsely regarding gender-related differences as a concrete concept and misuse these concepts of masculinity and femininity with the cultural constructs of these in our minds. (Lippa, 1998) Opposed to this, GD scales have been shown to present a higher degree of reliability as opposed to the PAQ and BSRI (Lippa, 1998). Research has shown links between GD and RIASEC score, where negative correlations were shown in Artistic and Social interests, and positive correlations were show towards Realistic interests.

Further investigation within our study could apply GD to the RIASEC model to develop a deeper understanding of potential correlations between occupational interests and gender-related traits, or, if not consistent with previous research, examine the effect of immediate social contexts and how it is implicated in gender-related traits. Additionally, the effect of our social construction of gender identity could be further examined in its influence on how men and women select their occupation over time.