Bem limited (1974). Measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155- 162.

Is your gender male or female? Are you a man or a woman? Are you a man or a woman? These are three seemingly similar questions, but the answers may surprise you. The answer to the first question is generally clear, because it is a biological answer based on chromosomes, hormones, reproductive structure and so on. Most people rarely hesitate to answer the second question. In fact, you have been very sure of your gender since you were almost four years old. Chances are, you don't need to stop and spend any time thinking to know whether you are a man or a woman.

However, the third question seems not so easy to answer. Different individuals have different degrees of "male" and "female", or masculine and feminine characteristics. Think about the people you know. You may classify some of them as extremely masculine (these people should all be men) and some as extremely feminine (these people should all be women), but some people's gender characteristics seem to be in between. They are both masculine and feminine (these people are men and women). These "classifications" are not judgmental, but only to illustrate the difference of an important feature of human beings. This masculine-feminine dimension constitutes what psychologists usually call "gender", and your view of your masculine and feminine degree is your "gender identity". Gender identity is one of the most important elements of personality, including your own and others' cognition of "who you are".

Before 1970s, behaviorists (and most non-scientists) held a polarized gender view: people's gender identity was either completely masculine or completely feminine, and they were regarded as the two poles of a single gender dimension. If you take a gender identity test based on this view, your test results will be more masculine or feminine in a single dimension. In addition, researchers and clinicians at that time believed that, to a certain extent, psychological adjustment was related to the fit between individuals based on biological gender and their gender types. In other words, the view at that time was that in order to achieve the best mental health, men should be as masculine as possible and women should be as feminine as possible.

However, in the early 1970s, this one-dimensional gender perspective was challenged. Anne Constantinople (1973) pointed out in her published article that masculinity and femininity are not two poles of the same dimension, on the contrary, they should be two independent dimensions to measure human gender. In other words, a person may have a certain degree of femininity and a certain degree of masculinity. Figure 7- 1 illustrates the comparison of one-dimensional and two-dimensional gender concepts.

Figure 7- 1 Comparison between traditional one-dimensional gender pattern and recent two-dimensional gender pattern

You may not find this idea strange, but it was a revolution when it was first put forward. The representative figure who supports this two-dimensional gender model is Sandra Bem of Stanford University. She challenged the prevailing gender concept at that time. At that time, people thought that a healthy gender identity should be manifested as a person's behavior in line with his biological gender social expectations. Bem suggested that a more harmonious person can effectively integrate the behaviors of men and women, and is actually happier and more adaptable than those who are extremely masculine or extremely feminine. Bem further developed this research and began to develop measurement methods based on two-dimensional gender model. In this paper, which is the basis of this paper, Bem created the word "androgyny" (andro means male and gyn means female) to describe those who are both masculine and feminine, and they can show the most appropriate behavior characteristics according to specific situations. In addition, Bem not only thinks that some people have the characteristics of androgyny, but also thinks that when a person moves from one living environment to another, androgynous personality characteristics can provide favorable conditions for better behavioral adaptability. Bem explained it this way:

People with distinct gender types always want their behavior to be consistent with internalized gender role standards, and may inhibit any behavior that is inconsistent with their gender to achieve their goals. Therefore, a person whose gender identity is masculine in self-concept may inhibit some feminine behaviors, and a person whose gender identity is feminine in self-concept may also inhibit some masculine behaviors. And a hybrid, or hermaphrodite, is free to act masculine or feminine. (P. 155)

For example, you may know an elegant, sensitive and soft-spoken lady (traditionally a woman), but she is also ambitious, independent and strong (traditionally a man). On the other hand, a male friend of yours may be aggressive, dominant and adventurous (masculine), but he sometimes shows some typical female characteristics, such as being emotional, compassionate and full of joy. Bem described these people as "androgynous". This paper expounds the theoretical basis and design process of the gender characteristics scale developed by Bem, namely the Bem Gender Role Scale (BSRI).

Theoretical hypothesis

Whenever scientists put forward a new theory that challenges the traditional view, they must also bear the responsibility of proving the correctness of this revolutionary view. If Bem wants to study the differences between androgynous people and extremely masculine or feminine people, she needs to find a way to prove the existence of androgyny. In other words, she must measure it.

Bem believes that to measure androgyny, a new measurement standard is needed, which should be essentially different from the previous masculine-feminine scale. Considering this goal, the scale she designed has the following innovations.

1.Bem's first consideration is to abandon the one-dimensional gender model in which masculinity and femininity are two poles in the same dimension. She introduced two independent dimensions to measure masculinity and femininity (see Table 7-2).

2. The scale she designed is based on the male and female characteristics of social expectations perceived by men and women respectively. Previous measurement methods were based on behaviors that both men and women can generally observe, not on American social expectations.

If a certain feature is more desirable to men, it is defined as masculinity; And a role is what women want more, so it is defined as feminization. (P. 155- 156)

3.BSRI aims to distinguish between male, female and hermaphrodite. Mainly by calculating the difference between the positive and negative scores of the subjects. That is to say, the masculine score is subtracted from the feminine score of the subject, and the difference can be used to judge the degree of masculinity, femininity or androgyny.

The measurement standard designed by Bem is composed of a series of personality characteristics or traits. In order to get a gender score, each personality trait should be evaluated on a 7-point scale, with 1 to 7 representing the respondents' cognition of a certain trait. Let's see how this scale is designed.

way

Selection of test items

Remember, Bem should use gender characteristics that meet social expectations. In order to complete her final scale, she listed a long list of characteristics that both she and her psychology students thought were valuable. These features are masculine, feminine and neuter. Each of the three function lists includes 200 items. She invited 100 college students from Stanford University (half male and half female) to judge whether these characteristics meet the expectations of American society for a man or a woman, and evaluated them on a 7-point scale of 1 (completely inconsistent) to 7 (very consistent).

According to the scores given by students, Bem selected the top 20 personality characteristics with the highest gender scores as the test items of the Masculinity Scale and the Femininity Scale. At the same time, she also chose 20 neglected and desirable personalities (these are not androgynous tests, but only used to reflect neutral gender characteristics), including 10 positive and negative neutral personality characteristics. The purpose of adding these test items to the scale is to ensure that the test items are all descriptions of men and women or social expectations, and will not affect the responses of the subjects too much. The final scale includes these 60 items. Table 7-2 gives an example of the characteristics of the project that was finally selected as BSRI. It should be noted that in the actual measurement, the test items are not presented separately according to gender types, but are randomly mixed.

Table 7-2 Revised Gender Role Scale

Score all test items according to the following criteria:

1= completely or almost not.

2= Not in most cases.

3= Sometimes but rarely.

4= Occasionally compliant

5= Meet frequently.

6= In most cases.

7= exactly or almost the same.

grade

Feminization score: total score of feminization test item ÷ 10 = _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Masculinity score: total score of masculinity test item ÷ 10 = _ _ _

Androgyny score: feminine score minus masculine score = _ _ _ _ _ _

Description:

Feminization = 1.00 or higher

Close to femininity =0.50 to 0.99

Androgyny =-0.50 to +0.49

Nearly masculine =- 1.00 to -0.49

Masculinity =- 1.00 or lower.

grade

As mentioned above, when measuring BSRI, a person only needs to use a 7-point scale to measure the consistency of all test items with himself. The corresponding standards are as follows: 1= completely or almost inconsistent; 2= Not in most cases; 3= Sometimes but rarely; 4= occasional compliance; 5= meet frequently; 6= In most cases; 7= exactly or almost the same. After the test is completed, the subjects will get three scores: positive score, negative score and androgyny score, which is the most important score in this paper. The positive score is the average of all the positive test scores and then divided by 10. The negative score is also obtained in this way, so the scores are all between 1.0 and 7.0. So, have you figured out how to use these two scores to calculate the hermaphrodite score? Remember, this scale can measure masculinity and femininity respectively, but it does not include hermaphroditism. If you think that androgyny score can be expressed by the difference between feminization score and masculinity score, then you are right, because Bem does it. A person's androgyny score is obtained by subtracting his masculinity score from his femininity score, which ranges from -6 to +6. It's really simple. Here are three typical examples, representing masculine, feminine and hermaphrodite people.

Jennifer's masculine score is 1.5, and her feminine score is 6.4. Subtract 1.5 from 6.4 and her hermaphrodite score is 4.9. Richard's masculine score is 5.8 and his feminine score is 2. 1, so his androgyny score is -3.7. Dana's masculinity and femininity scores were 3.9 and 4.3 respectively, and her androgyny score was 0.4.

Look at these data. Of the three examples we cited, who has the highest degree of androgyny? The answer is Dana. Because Dana's score of masculinity and femininity is basically the same (the score of androgyny is close to zero), she does not show obvious gender orientation like Jennifer and Richard. Therefore, Dinah's measurement results reflect that she has no obvious gender stereotype in self-awareness, but rather a balance between masculine and feminine characteristics, which is precisely the meaning of the word "androgyny".

The measurement results of BSRI can be explained as follows: the closer the score is to 0 (whether positive or negative), the higher the degree of androgyny; The farther away from 0, the higher the degree of feminization; The farther the negative direction is from 0, the more masculine it is.

You might want to measure yourself. Of course, at present, you won't get an ideal result, because you know the working principle of this scale too well! You will rate men, women and men separately, instead of mixing them together as in the actual measurement. However, remember these warnings and you can try to measure them. Table 7-2 provides simplified scores and explanations.

result

Any measurement basis must be reliable and effective. "Reliability" refers to the consistency of measurement, that is, the consistency of each test item to the same characteristics of the subjects, and the ability to get consistent results after repeated measurements. "Validity" refers to the consistency between what is actually measured and what we want to measure-as far as BSRI is concerned, what we want to measure is positive and negative.

Reliability of BSRI

The statistics of students' sample measurement results show that BSRI has high consistency and reliability in measuring masculinity and femininity. This means that 20 positive items all measure the same traits (assuming male characteristics) and 20 negative items all measure the same characteristics (assuming female characteristics). In order to ensure the consistency and reliability of the measurement is not affected by time, Bem conducted a second measurement on the original 60 people four weeks later. The results of the two measurements are highly correlated, so it has high "retest" reliability.

Effectiveness of BSRI

In order to prove the validity of BSRI, it is very important to first analyze the test items of men and women to ensure that they are not the same characteristics. Because the theoretical basis of Bem's research is that masculinity and femininity are two relatively independent dimensions, and these two independent dimensions can be measured separately. Bem's method to prove this is to check the correlation coefficient of BSRI male subscale and female subscale scores. The results show that the scores of the two subscales are not significantly correlated, and their functions are independent.

Next, Bem needs to prove that this scale does measure the gender characteristics of men and women. To confirm this, she analyzed the average scores of men and women on the male and female subscales respectively. As you expected, the result should be that men score higher on positive items and women score higher on negative items. This is exactly what Bem found in college students, and this difference has reached a high statistical significance.

Finally, Bem classified the subjects according to the form discussed above, namely, masculine, feminine and hermaphrodite. She found that most people have little difference between femininity and masculinity. In other words, most subjects are hermaphroditic. Table 7-3 shows the percentage of male, female and bisexual subjects in Bem study.

Table 7-3 Percentage of Male, Female and Androgyny in Subjects

Note: The number of subjects =9 17.

discuss

The discussion part in Bem's article is short, pithy and convincing. I'm afraid the best way to report is to quote the original text directly and completely:

It is hoped that the emergence and development of BSRI will encourage researchers in the field of gender differences and gender roles to question the traditional view that only people with typical gender roles can have mental health, and instead pay attention to the impact of this more flexible concept of gender roles on human behavior and society. When the rigid division of gender roles is no longer applicable to this society, perhaps the concept of androgyny will establish a more humane standard for mental health. (P. 162)

This passage shows how Bem's research changed psychology. Decades after his article was published, western culture gradually began to agree that "some people are bisexual", and having both male and female characteristics was not excluded, but was considered as an advantage. More men and women begin to engage in or participate in occupations, hobbies, sports activities and family activities that are traditionally regarded as "limited" to the opposite sex. From female CEO to "full-time husband", from female firefighters and soldiers to male nurses and teachers, from women in power to men who show their sensitive side, you will see changes in gender roles and gender expectations everywhere in society.

However, this is by no means to say that culture is blind to gender differences. On the contrary, the expectation of gender roles will still have a great influence on our choice of behavior and attitude, and gender discrimination is still a serious social problem. Generally speaking, men are still considered decisive, while women are often considered emotional; The vast majority of pilots are men (96%), while almost all dental and oral care doctors are women (98%). However, we should note that the cultural differences accompanying gender division are decreasing and will continue.

Under the influence of Bem's new concept of gender, a lot of research has been carried out. As mentioned above, before the 1970s, it was generally believed that only "matching sex with biological sex" could best adapt to life. In other words, boys and men should show masculine attitudes and behaviors, and girls and women should show feminine attitudes and behaviors. However, the discovery of androgyny changed this view, and researchers began to explore the differences between men, women and androgynous individuals.

Criticism and follow-up research

A study shows that hermaphrodite children and adults tend to have a higher level of self-esteem and are more adaptable in different situations (Taylor and Hall, 1982). Another study pointed out that hermaphrodites are more likely to establish intimate relationships with the opposite sex, which may be because they can better understand and accept their differences (Coleman &; Ganon, 1985). Recent research shows that active hermaphrodites are psychologically healthier and happier (Woodhill &; Samuel, 2003). However, with the passage of time, the theory of androgyny developed by Bem and others has also undergone many improvements and perfection.

Many researchers have pointed out that those who are highly androgynous may experience more psychological advantages, because they show masculinity rather than gender balance (whitley, 1983). On second thought, it still makes sense. Obviously, many traditional female characteristics, such as dependence, self-criticism and sentimentality, do not meet the expectations of society. This explains why more masculine people will be treated better and gradually have higher self-confidence and self-esteem than others. However, not all male characteristics are positive, and all female characteristics are negative. The characteristics of each gender include both positive and negative aspects.

On this basis, the researcher further puts forward a more accurate concept of androgyny, which includes four dimensions: the feminization of praise; Unauthorized feminization; Praised masculinity; Unpleasant masculinity (see Ricciardelli &; Williams, 1995). Firmness, self-confidence and fortitude are praised as male personality characteristics, while bossiness, noise and harshness are all male personality characteristics that are not praised. As far as feminization is concerned, patience, sensitivity and strong sense of responsibility are all praised personality characteristics, while nervousness, shyness and weakness are all unrecognized personality characteristics. Therefore, through the distribution of a person's above characteristics, we can infer his gender type: positive masculinity, negative masculinity, positive femininity, negative femininity, positive androgyny or negative androgyny.

When gender characteristics are defined in more detail according to positive and negative nature, positive androgynous character strengths begins to be respected (for example, Woodhill &: Samuel, 2003). People who have the best male and female characteristics are more comprehensive, happier, more popular, more likable, more flexible and more caring than those who have only one gender characteristic or combine the negative aspects of both gender characteristics. Imagine comparing a patient, sensitive, responsible, firm, confident and strong person (male or female) with a neurotic, shy, weak, bossy, noisy and harsh person (negative androgyny), and you will understand this amendment of Bem's theory more clearly.

Bem has always been a leader in the field of gender roles. She used her own theory and research to debate the issue of gender inequality, and discussed this issue in detail in the book "The Lens of Gender" published by 1994. Recently, she began to pay attention to complex issues such as marriage, family and child-rearing, and published a book "A United Nations Conspiracy Family" (1998). In the book, Bem uses her life experience with her ex-husband and Cornell University famous psychologist Daryl Bem to discuss how a couple can avoid forming traditional expectations of gender behavior, how to treat each other equally, and how to cultivate their children into "gender liberation" and have positive androgyny.

Recent applications

When you read this article, you may ask a question: Are the test items used to test masculinity and femininity always effective? In other words, can they always be used to distinguish masculine people from feminine people? In fact, you may disagree with some test items. After all, this study was conducted decades ago, and the expectation of social values on gender behavior will change with time, right? The answer to this question is "possible!" In the late 1990s, a study selected students from a medium-sized university in the southern United States as the research object, and re-evaluated all the projects of BSRI. The results show that except for two of them, other test items can still distinguish masculinity and femininity to a great extent (Holt &; Ellis, 1998). Those two special cases-"childishness" and "loyalty"-are descriptions of the female characteristics of BSRI, but in the study of 1998, they were not rated as more desirable characteristics for women (not men).

However, another study came to a completely different result. When students from a university in the northeastern United States were selected as subjects to verify the BSRI test, the results showed great differences (Konrad &; Harris, 2002). The results show that (1) female subjects think that only one of the 20 masculine test items ("masculinity") is more praised by men; (2) Male subjects think that there are 13 praised masculine personality characteristics among 20 masculine items; (3) Female subjects only think that two items (feminization and whispering) are more appreciated by women; (4) There are 7 feminization projects that male subjects feel more praised by women.

How do we explain the difference between the results of these two studies? One possibility is that people's gender identity is related to geographical areas. Holt and Alice's data came from the southern United States (still a relatively small town), while Conrad and Harris's testers came from the northeastern United States (and a big city). The author believes that another possibility is that the subjects in the study may have "guessed" the purpose of the study, thus making their answers biased:

Specifically, although the subjects are required to score gender characteristics, the fact that only gender is designated as the test target may imply the purpose of the study. In view of this possibility, the subjects are likely to provide more equal gender identity than the real situation to express positive self-image. (Conrad & Ellis, 2002, p. 270)

Bem's work has had a great influence on the study of sexual characteristics and gender, and her work has laid the foundation for gender-related research. For example, there is a study that examines how gender characteristics affect people's views on men and women in leadership positions (Ayman &; Kolabik, 20 10). Among many influencing factors, researchers found that gender (in part) determines whether a person can become a leader. Most leaders are men. Why? Because in the traditional impression, we see more masculine and socially dominant personality characteristics in people who become leaders. In addition, individuals who are task-oriented and seldom express their emotions are more likely to become leaders, and these qualities are more common in men. However, recent research shows that individuals who show androgyny are more likely to become leaders if the gender composition of the group and specific leadership tasks are taken into account. This may be because individuals with high androgyny are more likely to combine task orientation with emotional expression, which is the key to make many leadership work more efficient.

conclusion

Sandra Bem's research has changed psychology, because it has changed the views of psychologists, individuals and the whole society on one of the most basic characteristics of human beings-gender identity. Bem's research plays an important role in broadening our horizons and making us truly aware of what men and women are and what masculinity and femininity are. It is precisely because of this that each of us has the opportunity to expand our behavior patterns, choices and life goals.

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