Sex Role Orientation, Personality Structure, and Adjustment in Women

Abstract

In an effort to clarify and expand the theoretical foundation for behavioral researches on androgyny the present study, through an extensive literature review, attempted to establish personality structure as a function of masculine instrumentality (M) and feminine expressivity (F) in females. Results were strong and confirming, suggesting that considerable relationship may exist between certain sex role socialization practices and general personality development. In addition, the implications of instrumentality and expressivity for adjustment were investigated through a planned contrast of clinical and normal groups, with the expectation that feminine females would appear more frequently in the clinical group. However, results clarified that it is the lack of masculine instrumentality in the personality, not the feminine role per se, which is implicated in mental illness. These findings lend clarity to previous researches on androgyny and adjustment. Implications for feminine socialization and ego psychology are considered.

Threat to Gender Representation: Identity and Identification

“…In contrast to the role of masculine sex-typing, there was no clear relationship between strength of feminine sex-typing and the effect of feedback on the use of identification. This result is consistent with a number of studies showing that masculine, but not feminine, sextyping in males is associated with self-acceptance and identity, while for females it is also the presence of masculine sex-typing, along with feminine sex-typing, that is associated with these personality variables (e.g., Massad, 1981;Schiedel & Marcia, 1985;Thomas & Reznikoff, 1984).…”

Masculinity, Femininity, and Marital Satisfaction: An Examination of Theoretical Models

“…Their results show that sex roles, in particular femininity, are good predictors of marital satisfaction (Antill, 1983;Baucom & Aiken, 1984;Bradbury & Fincham, 1988;Kurdek, 1989;Kurdek & Schmitt, 1986). Femininity is also positively associated with other variables such as empathy (Thomas & ReznikofF, 1984), the importance placed on marriage and the family (Doherty, 1979), and nurturing behaviors in the laboratory (Bem, Martyna, & Watson, 1976), all of which are likely to influence the quality of a close relationship.…”

Change and stability of masculinity‐femininity from adolescence to adulthood in a sample of Swedish women

“…In general, instrumentality has been associated with independence, dominance, activity, defensiveness, egocentricity, extraversion, and emotional stability. Expressivity has been associated with traits like affiliation, nurturance, and sociability (see, for example, Thomas and Reznikoff, 1984).…”