Development of a short-form Sex Role Behavior Scale

This article describes the construction of a short-form of the Sex Role Behavior Scale (SRBS). The SRBS is a self-report inventory that samples the interest/behavior domain of sex roles comprehensively. It consists of male-valued (M), female-valued (F), and sex-specific (MF) interests and behaviors in four areas: leisure activity preferences; vocational interests; social interaction; and marital, or primary relationship, behaviors. We administered the SRBS to 411 college men and women along with measures of sex role personality traits and attitudes. Items were selected from the SRBS for inclusion in the short form. We examined male-female differences on the short-form scales, internal consistency, intercorrelations among the scales, and relations of the short-form scales with the long form and with measures of sex role traits and attitudes. The results indicate that the short-form SRBS is a satisfactory substitute for the lengthy inventory from which it was drawn. However, limited internal consistency for some of the separate behavior area subscales suggests that the short form is most suitable for global assessments of sex role interests/behaviors, whereas the long form is more appropriate when more specific assessments are required in the separate interest/behavior areas represented on the SRBS.