Sex Differences in the Eyes of Expert Personality Assessors: Blind Spots?

The Convergence of the California Q-set and the California Psychological Inventory: Gender as a Critical Variable

“…The intraclass correlation coefficient was used to assess composite interrater reliability, with values ranging from .17 to .79 at the most recent extensive adult follow-up. Although relevant reliability analyses by gender cannot be constructed for the data we present here, Haan and Livson (1973) did demonstrate with data collected at an earlier follow-up that men and women CQ Set raters were essentially equally reliable, with agreement among raters not differing by the gender of the ratee.…”

“…Investigators have begun to demonstrate, however, interesting systematic patterns of convergent and divergent cross-source personality reports. Focusing on the connection between self-and other-report data, research indicates reports are likely to converge if: (a) raters know the target subject well (Funder & Colvin, 1988), (b) traits are salient or "visible" to raters (Funder, 1980;Funder & Dobroth, 1987;Kenrick & Stringfield, 1980), (c) traits are not evaluative or affectively charged (Cantor & Kilhstrom, 1987;John & Robins, 1993;Tesser & Campbell, 1983), (d) traits are consistently displayed by subjects (Bem & Allen, 1974;Kenrick & Stringfield, 1980), and (e) raters are not blinded by sexual stereotypes (Davidson & Abramowitz, 1980;Haan & Livson, 1973).…”

Sex Bias in Clinical Judgment: Later Empirical Returns

“…Archival findings regarding the impact of patientclinician gender combinations on clinical evaluations have been inconsistent. An earlier report that female personality assessors described women more fivorably than did their male colleagues, whose evaluations were harsher regardless of subject gender (Haan & Livson, 1973), may have been premature (Werner & BLock, 1975). In addition, the relevance of those data to clinical practice was limited since the persons evaluated were normals in a longitudinal personality study rather than patients, and the evaluations were Q-sort descriptions rather than diagnoses.…”

“Mental illness” and “disease”

“…Neulinger (1968) and Chesler (1971), for example, have demonstrated that the sex orientation of our society is promoted by its clinical personnel. Haan and Livson (1973), moreover, observed that even among "left-oriented, experienced" mental health professionals of both sexes, sexrelated biases were in evidence. Haan and Livson (1973), moreover, observed that even among "left-oriented, experienced" mental health professionals of both sexes, sexrelated biases were in evidence.…”