Remarks on Bem's measurement of psychological androgyny: Alternative methods and a supplementary analysis.

Abstract

The drawbacks of a t ratio measure of psychological androgyny are discussed. Other measurement approaches are indicated, and a substantive issue is addressed. Bern (1974) recently described a sex-role inventory that provides separate Femininity and Masculinity scale scores and uses their f-ratio difference as a measure of psychological androgyny. There are, however, both descriptive and inferential problems associated with the application of Student's t. This article describes these problems, suggests their resolution through use of the simple difference score rather than the t ratio, and points out additional measurement procedures that might prove worthwhile. It also reports a further analysis of the Bern data. The Bern Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) and Its ScoringThe BSRI consists of a number of personality characteristics to be self-rated by subjects from 1 ("Never or almost never true") to 7 ("Always or almost always true"). The 20-item Femininity scale contains traits judged to be more desirable in American society for a woman than for a man, and the mean of ratings for these traits is called the Femininity score (here denoted F). Similarly, the 20-item Masculinity scale contains traits judged to be more desirable for a man than for a woman, and the mean of these ratings is called the Masculinity score (M). A subject's Androgyny score (also called the Androgyny t ratio) is the difference between the Femininity and Masculinity scores expressed as Student's t, that is, the difference between means, F -M (the Androgyny difference score), divided by a term reflectingThe author thanks Randi Hagen for bringing this subject to his attention and Leroy Wolins for his helpful comments.Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert

Masculinity, femininity and sex: an exploration of their relative contribution to explaining gender differences in health

“…If femininity and masculinity scores were approximately equal, then that person was deflned as 'androgynous'. However, this scoring method was subject to an influential critique by Spence, Helmreich and Stapp (1975) and Staham (1975) who claimed that such a deflnition of androgyny obscured the distinction between individuals who score high on femininity and high on masculinity, and those who score low on both. Bem endorsed their recommendation that a 'median split method' be used on the basis that high-high ('androgynous') and low-low ('undifferentiated') individuals did appear to comprise distinct groups.…”

Gender identity and gender role in schizophrenia.

“…This approximate method is preferred because, unlike the actual ! score, it does not confound mean level difference with variability of ratings (Strahan, 1975). Yet, the 120.…”

A Scoring Procedure for Sex-Role Orientation Based On Profile Similarity Indices

“…Several researchers (e.g., Bem, 1977;Strahan, 1975) have advocated multiple regression techniques to examine separate and combined effects of masculinity and femininity on dependent variables of interest. Multiple regression may well be the method of choice for identifying combinations of masculinity and femininity traits that account for the most variance in particular criteria.…”

“…The resulting score, called a t-ratio, is similar in principle to the familiar Student's t statistic. Strahan (1975) criticized this procedure on the grounds that it violated statistical assumptions underlying Student's t. He suggested that the simple unadjusted difference score (F-M) estimated the t-ratio quite accurately and could be used instead. Spence et al (1975) described a different scoring procedure.…”