Sex Roles, Vol. 9, No.

4, 1983

Androgyny and Sex-Typing: Differences in

Beliefs Regarding Gender Polarity in Ratings
of Ideal Men and Women 1
Karla S. M c P h e r s o n 2 and Susan K. Spetrino 3
The College of Wooster

To test Bem's (1979) hypothesis that androgynous and sex-typed individuals

are differentiated by the presence or absence o f beliefs in "gender polarity, "
200 students rated themselves on the short Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI).
O f these 200, 20 androgynous women, 20 androgynous men, 20 feminine
sex-typed women, and 20 masculine sex-typed men were randomly selected
and asked to rate either the ideal woman or the ideal man on the short
B S R L A s predicted, androgynous women did not rate the ideal man and
woman differently, but, contrary to prediction, neither did feminine-typed
women. A s predicted, masculine-typed men rated the ideal man and
woman differently, but, contrary to prediction, so did androgynous men.
Thus, sex rather than sex-role distinguished subjects" beliefs in gender
polarity. This finding may reflect women's desires for, and men's fears of,
abandoning traditional modes o f sex differentiation. The large initial subject
p o o l was necessary because an extremely high percentage o f subjects were
classified as feminine sex-typed. A n apparent feminine bias in the short
B S R I is discussed.

Since the publication of numerous arguments against bipolar and unidimen-

sional approaches to the study of femininity and masculinity (e.g., Constan-
tinople, 1973; Gonen & Lansky, 1968; Jenkin & Vroegh, 1969), the
investigation of psychological androgyny has received much attention

'The authors would like to thank Dr. Sandra Bem for sending them the short BSRI which
was, at the time of this study, nol generally available. Order of aulhorship is alphabetical;
both authors contributed equally to the project.
2Correspondence should be sent to lhe first author, Deparlmenl of Psychology, The
College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio 44691.
'Now a! the University of North Carolina School of Law.
441
0360 0025/83/0400 044I$03.00/() ]983 Plezlunl Put~lishirl~ ('orporatil~n
442 McPherson and Spetrino

(Bem, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1979; Spence & Helmreich, 1978, 1979). The Bern
Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bern, 1974, 1979) is widely used in the assess-
ment of androgyny despite controversy over its construction and scoring
(e.g., Pedhauzer & Tetenbaum, 1979; Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1975).
As a result of discussion in the literature, Bem (1979) revised the BSRI to
eliminate items correlated with sex and feminine items found to be low in
social desirability and/or not loading on the feminine factor identified in
various factor-analytic studies of the instrument (e.g., Gaudreau, 1977).
The newer, short form of the BSRI contains the 10 items that represent the
most desirable personality characteristics usually associated with each sex
(Bern, 1979) and 10 filler items not found to be sex-linked (Pedhauzer &
Tetenbaum, 1979; Walkup & Abbott, 1978).
At the same time that Bern (1979) discussed her revision of the BSRI,
she also made explicit various assumptions that have been implicit in her
research. She asserts that sex-typed and androgynous individuals, in
addition to differing in the extent to which they have internalized socially
prescribed gender roles, also differ in the extent to which they believe
the sexes are basically different. She suggests that this difference in beliefs
and expectations regarding a basic "gender polarity" leads to both the dis-
crepancy in subjects' self-ratings on the BSRI and, consequently, the
hypothesized differences in their behavior. She also contends that as a result
of this variation in belief in gender polarity, androgynous and sex-typed
persons will differ in the extent to which they utilize sex as a factor in
processing information, making personality attributions, and inferring
causality of behavioral outcomes. These cognitive differences are believed
by Bern to represent the fundamental difference between androgynous and
sex-typed individuals, rather than variation in degrees of femininity and
masculinity.
Two recent investigations provide initial support for the hypothesis
that sex-typed individuals will more readily differentiate along a sex-
related dimension. Deaux and Major (1977) found that sex-typed subjects
differentiated between male and female actors more than did androgynous
subjects in a unitization task, and Lippa (1977) found that sex-typed
subjects utilized a masculinity-femininity dimension more than did an-
drogynous subjects in a handwriting analysis study. However, whether
androgynous and sex-typed individuals differ in the content of their
beliefs regarding what the two sexes are like has not been empirically
tested.
Bem's hypotheses suggest that androgynous and sex-typed individuals
should differ in the kinds of personality assumptions they make about
women and men. Specifically, sex-typed individuals should believe that
Androgynyand Sex-Typing 443

the personalities of men and women are fundamentally different, while

androgynous individuals should not. Therefore, if sex-typed individuals
were asked to rate an ideal woman and an ideal man on a number of
traits, the ratings should differ, reflecting the stereotypes which Bern
implies are characteristic of sex-typed persons. Ratings made by androg-
ynous individuals, on the other hand, should reflect a single implicit
belief about the personality of the ideal person.
To test this hypothesis, the present investigation compared the
ratings of a hypothetical ideal man and ideal woman made by androgynous
and sex-typed subjects on the short BSRI. The description "ideal" was
selected rather than the perhaps more intuitively applicable "typical" in
order to avoid descriptions which simply conformed to, or demonstrated
knowledge of, popularized stereotypes rather than an individual's personal
beliefs. Although perceptions of ideals have been reported as less sex-typed
than typicals (Deutsch & Gilbert, 1976), Gilbert, Deutsch, and Strahan
(1978) found that perceptions of ideals and typicals (rated on the original
BSRI) did not differ for male subjects. Women did rate the ideal woman
as less sex-typed than the typical, but Gilbert et al. suggest that this may
have been due simply to the higher desirability of the masculine items on
the original BSRI, a problem corrected in the short form.

METHOD

Subjects

Subjects were 102 female and 98 male students from introductory

psychology, economics, and English classes at a private liberal arts college.
Of these 200, 80 (40 men and 40 women) participated in the complete
study, with subjects randomly selected from cells that included more than
10 in order to maintain equal cell ns. The large initial group of subjects
was required because of an apparent feminine bias in the instrument,
which will be discussed below.

Design

A 2 (sex-typed vs. androgynous) x 2 (subject sex) x 2 (target sex)

between-subjects factorial design was employed. Target sex was a between-
subjects factor in order to avoid suspicion. The dependent measure was the
rating of the target person (ideal man or woman) on the short BSRI.
444 McPherson and Spetrino

Materials

The short form of the BSRI was used to initially classify subjects
as sex-typed or androgynous. At a later date the same form was admini-
stered with the directions altered so that subjects were asked to imagine the
ideal woman or the ideal man and to rate her or him on the character-
istics provided.

Procedure

Subjects completed the short BSRI with the standard instructions.

Confidentiality was assured, and the experimenter stressed that there was
no "good" or "bad" score on the instrument. Subjects were told that they
were providing their names only so that they could be contacted later to
participate in the second part of the study and that they were not being
evaluated in any way.
The inventories were scored using the difference/median method
(Orlofsky, Aslin, & Ginsburg, 1977) which combines the original t-ratio
difference method (Bern, 1974) and the median-split method (Bem, 1977).
For purposes of consistency, this method was chosen over the more well-
established median-split method because it would be necessary for scoring
the second set of ratings in order to obtain ordinal, rather than nominal,
data. Subjects were classified into four groups on the basis of their scores:
androgynous men, androgynous women, masculine sex-typed men, and
feminine sex-typed women. Cross-sex-typed and undifferentiated
individuals were excluded, as there were too few to allow for meaningful
comparisons. In addition, some individuals were randomly excluded in an
attempt to maintain equal cell ns.
Each group was then randomly divided into two subgroups, one of
which would later rate the ideal woman while the other would rate the ideal
man. These ratings were made 7 to 10 days after the initial administration of
the BSRI. After the data were collected and analyzed, all 200 subjects were
sent a letter describing the nature, purpose, and results of the study and
thanking them again for their participation.

RESULTS

Descriptive Information

Cell means for the dependent measure, ratings of the ideal woman
and ideal man, are presented in Table I. Although Bern assigns values
Androgyny and Sex-Typing 445

Table 1. Mean Ratings of ideals as a Function of

Sex and Sex Role a
Androgynous Sex-typed
sex role sex role
Male Female Male Female
Target sex
Male .40 1.39 - .65 2.76
Female 2.72 .26 2.6 1.67
aScores may range from - 7 to +7, with the
positive end representing greater femininity. All
cell ns = 10.

between - 1 and 1 to the androgynous category, with scores below - 1

categorized as masculine sex-typed and scores above 1 categorized as
feminine sex-typed, caution should be used in applying such labels because
of a probable feminine bias (discussed below).

Overall Analysis of Variance

A 2 x 2 x 2 factorial analysis of variance was conducted in order

to assess overall effects. (See Table II). The A N O V A revealed a significant
main effect of target sex, with ideal women rated as significantly more
feminine than ideal men; F(1, 72) = 4.77, p < .032, Xs = 1.8 and .98,
respectively. Neither the subject sex nor the sex-role main effect approached
significance. Significant two-way interactions were found for both subject
sex x sex role, F(1, 72) = 6.65, p < .012, and subject sex x target sex,
F(1, 72) = 25.95, p < .001. The f o r m of these effects will be discussed
below.

Table I1. Summary of Overall Analysis of Variance

Source df MS F p
Main effects
Subject sex (A) 1 1.295 .442 .508
Sex role (B) 1 3.305 1.127 .292
Target sex (C) 1 13.978 4.765 .032
Interaction effects
A x B 1 19.503 6.649 .012
A x C 1 76.128 25.953 .001
B x C 1 1.191 .406 .526
A x B × C 1 .986 .336 .564
Error 72 2.933
Total 79 4.147
446 McPherson and Spetrino

Tests of the Hypotheses

The major prediction was that sex-typed subjects would rate the
ideal man and woman differently, while androgynous subjects would
not. This pattern was expected to hold for subjects of both sexes. Or-
thogonal contrasts of means employing t-ratio tests of significance (Kirk,
1968) were performed to test this hypothesis. Results revealed that, as
predicted, the difference between ratings of ideal men (X = .90) and
ideal women (X = 1.49) made by androgynous subjects was not significant.
Contrary to prediction, the difference between ratings of ideal men (X =
1.1) and ideal w o m e n (X = 2.14) made by sex-typed subjects also failed
to reach significance, although it was larger than the difference for an-
drogynous subjects. This is also reflected in the nonsignificant sex role x
target sex interaction.
When sex of subject was considered, however, an interesting pattern
emerged. Androgynous women's ratings of ideal men and women did not
differ, while, contrary to prediction, the difference between androgynous
men's ratings of ideal men and women did differ; t(72) = 3.03, p < .01.
On the other hand, while masculine men's ratings of the ideals differed,
t(72) = 4.24, p < .001 as hypothesized, there was no significant dif-
ference between feminine women's ratings. In other words, the subject sex
x target sex interaction breaks down to reveal that rather than sex-typed
individuals rating a significant difference between ideal women and men
and androgynous persons not doing so, the difference is between men and
women. When considered separately, neither group of women rated a sig-
nificant difference between ideal men and women, while both groups of
men did. Cell means collapsed over sex role are presented in f a b l e Ill.
These collapsed means were further compared using Tukey's honest
significant difference (HSD) method. Men rated the ideal woman to be
more feminine than women did (p < .01), and also more feminine than
they rated the ideal man to be (p < .01). Women, on the other hand, rated

Table III. Mean Ratings of ideals

Collapsed over Sex Role
Male Female
subjects subjects
Target sex
Male -.13 2.08
Female 2.66 .97
~Scores may range from - 7 to
+7, with the positive end rep-
resenting greater femininity. All
ceil ns = 20.
Androgynyand Sex-Typing 447

the ideal man as more feminine than men did (p < .01), and also more
feminine than the ideal woman, although this latter difference barely
reached significance at the .05 level and is based on twice the n as the major
analyses.

DISCUSSION

The hypothesis that a significant difference would emerge between

sex-typed subjects' ratings of ideal women and men, while no such dif-
ference would occur for androgynous subjects, was not supported. Thus,
the two sex-role groups do not seem to be differentiated by a dissimilarity
in beliefs concerning a basic gender polarity, at least in the population
under study. These data lend a measure of uncertainty to Bem's (1979)
premise that both self-descriptive and behavioral differences between
androgynous and sex-typed individuals "are themselves a consequence of
the difference in the content of their beliefs about the two sexes" (p. 1052).
The present study did, however, find a sex difference which suggests
that only women may harbor a single implicit vision of the ideal person,
while men hold two separate stereotypic personality profiles for women
and men. This may reflect women's growing feeling that they will benefit if
the need to advocate the principle of equality is transcended as equality
becomes a reality; they may view lack of sex differences in personality
as a necessary step in this process. For example, many stereotypic mas-
culine characteristics, such as "has leadership ability," play a crucial role
in achieving success in many occupations. Thus, if women are not to be
restricted in their career options, they cannot conform to society's defini-
tion of the feminine woman (cf. Sherman, 1976). Similarly, women may
perceive that a significant diminution of male "machismo" will be necessary
in order for truly egalitarian working relationships to be established. In
contrast, men's differentiation between the sexes may reflect underlying
fears that men may have something to lose in a world where traditional
modes of sex differentiation are discarded. Especially in the current
recessionary economy, men are facing more competition from women in the
job market. In the Gilbert et al. (1978) study, men did not differentiate
between the typical and the ideal, ostensibly meaning that they believed the
(stereo)typical individual to also represent the ideal. Women, however, rated
t]~e ideal woman as significantly less sex-typed than the typical woman.
In the present study, when the two groups of women were combined,
the tendency for them to rate the ideal man as more feminine than the
ideal woman reached significance (by the HSD method), although it
was not significant within either androgynous or feminine-typed women.
448 McPherson and Spetrino

Apparently, the greater power afforded by doubling the n produced this

discrepant effect. Though this unprecedented occurrence is of questionable
reliability, the literature does suggest an explanation. Locksley and Colten
(1979) have challenged the predominant view that ratings are made against
some homogeneous and absolute standard, proposing that the rating
process is, in fact, relative. For example, some characteristic on the BSRI,
such as "dominant," might be viewed quite differently depending on
whether its referent is a man or a woman. Men have been criticized for
being too dominant (controlling/domineering), while women are striving to
be more dominant (authoritative/assertive). Thus, the word "dominant"
may carry different connotations when applied to men than to women.
This type of relativity in the rating process might explain why women rated
the ideal man as more feminine than the ideal woman. However, this effect
was weak.

A Possible Feminine Bias in the Short B S R I

A possible social shift in the meaning or evaluations of the traits

included on the BSRI may also explain an apparent feminine bias in the
instrument. As noted, it was necessary to recruit a large initial subject
pool in order to obtain enough subjects for each cell. This unforeseen
problem occurred because an unusually high percentage of the subjects
were classified as feminine sex-typed. Although there are no other published
studies to use as a basis for comparison, the present data suggest that while
the long form may have contained a masculine bias, the short form of the
BSRI contains a feminine bias.
Despite the finding (Pedhauzer & Tetenbaum, 1979) that the desir-
ability ratings of the 10 masculine and 10 feminine traits retained on the
short form are equivalent when applied to "an adult," the present data
suggest that beliefs about the desirability of the traits are changing and/or
desirability ratings are contingent on sex of stimulus person. Table IV com-
pares the sex-role classification of subjects from the present study, an
earlier study using the original BSRI scored by the median-split method
(Bern, 1977), and a study using the PAQ (Spence & Helmreich, 1978).
While advocates (Orlofsky et al., 1977) have pointed out that the dif-
ference/median scoring method does produce a higher number of sex-
typed classifications than the median-split method, the percentage of sex-
typed persons found by Orlofsky et al. using the long BSRI was only
49, a figure significantly lower than the 74% found in the present study.
Neither the scoring procedure nor possible conservatism of the
sample can explain the male data from the present study. Regardless
of the instrument, there is no precedent for this strikingly high percentage
Androgyny and Sex-Typing 449

x=

<
0
L

0 {,-,4

- . - . ".--" II -~ II ~,=
450 MePherson and Spetrino

of feminine sex-typed men in the literature. And, in the ratings of ideals,

not one cell produced a mean that would be classified as masculine sex-
typed. Apparently, either there is a feminine bias in the short BSRI or the
sample recruited in this study is very unusual.

CONCLUSION

Regardless of the apparent feminine bias in the short BSRI and despite
the tendency for absolute scores to fall into the feminine category, all
analyses performed in this study involved relative differences, so that the
findings are still significant. The hypothesis derived from Bem's work was
not supported, but the finding that women are less likely than men to use
implicit personality schema based on traditional sex stereotypes is very
intriguing and should stimulate further research. This finding lends support
to the argument that being classified as either androgynous or sex-typed
does not necessarily mean the same thing for women and men (e.g., Jones,
Chernovitz, & Hansson, 1978). Sex differences are perhaps more im-
portant than androgyny researchers have realized, particularly during a
time of change.
It also seems that conceptions of the desirability of certain traits may
be changing rapidly and reassessment of trait desirability should be carried
out regularly if instruments such as the BSRI are to maintain validity over
time. The suggestion of a feminine bias in the short BSRI indicates that
large-scale testing of the instrument is necessary.

REFERENCES

Bern, S. Ttle measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical

Psychology, 1974, 42, 155-162.
Bern, S. Sex role adaptability: One consequence of psychological androgyny. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, 31, 634-643.
Bern, S. On the utility of alternative procedures for assessing psychological androgyny.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1977, 45, 196-205.
Bern, S. Theory and measurement of androgyny: A reply to the Pedhauzer-Tetenbaum and
Locksley-Collen critiques. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1979,
37, 1047-1054.
Constantinople, A. Masculinity-femininity: An exception to a famous dictum. Psychological
Bulletin, 1973, 80, 389-407.
Deaux, K., & Major, B. Sex-related patterns in the unit of perception. Personafity and
SociaI Psychology Bulletin, 1977, 3, 297-300.
Deutsch, C., & Gilbert, L. Sex role stereotypes: Effect on perceptions of self and others,
and on personal adjustment. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1976, 23, 373-379.
Gaudreau, P. Factor analysis of the Bern Sex Role Inventory. Journal of Consulting and
ClinicaI Psychology, 1977, 45, 299-302.
Androgyny and Sex-Typing 451

Gilbert, L., Deutsch, C., & Strahan, R. Feminine and masculine dimensions of the typical,
desirable, and ideal woman and man. SexRoles, 1978, 4, 767-778.
Gonen, J., & Lansky, L. Masculinity, femininity, and masculinity-femininity: A phenom-
enological study of the MF scale of the MMPI. Psychological Reports, 1968, 23,
183-194.
Jenkin, N., & Vroegh, K. Contemporary concepts of masculinity and femininity. Psy-
chological Reports, 1969, 25, 679-697.
Jones, W., Chernovitz, M., & Hansson, R. The enigma of androgyny: Differential im-
plications for males and females? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,
1978, 46, 298-313.
Kirk, R. Experimental design: Procedures" for the behavioral sciences. Belmont, Calif.:
Brooks/Cole, 1968.
Lippa, R. Androgyny, sex-typing, and the perception of masculinity-femininity in hand-
writing. Journal of Research in Personality, 1977, 11, 21-37.
Locksley, A., & Colten, M. Psychological androgyny: A case of mistaken identity. Journal of
Personality andSocialPsychology, 1979, 37, 1017-1031.
Orlofsky, J., Aslin, A., & Ginsburg, S. Differential effectiveness of two classification
procedures on the Bern Sex Role Inventory. Journal of Personality Assessment,
1977, 41, 414-415.
Pedhauzer, E., & Tetenbaum, T. Bern Sex Role Inventory: A theoretical and methodological
critique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1979, 3 7, 996-1016.
Sherman, J. A. Social values, femininity, and the development of female competence.
Journal of Social Issues, 1976, 32, 181-195.
Spence, J., & Helmreich, R. Masculinity and femininity: Their psychological dimensions,
correlates, and antecedents. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978.
Spence, J., & Helmreich, R. The many faces of androgyny: A reply to Locksley and Colten.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1979, 3 7, 1032-1046.
Spence, J., Helmreich, R., & Stapp, J. Ratings of self and peers on sex role attributes
and their relation to self-esteem and conceptions of masculinity and femininity.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, 32, 29-39.
Walkup, H., & Abbott, R. Cross-validation of item selection on the Bem Sex Role Inventory.
Applied PsychologicalMeasurement, 1978, 2, 63-71.