A Comparison Of The Adjective Check List, Bem Sex Role Inventory, And Personal Attributes Questionnaire Masculinity...

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Personality Psychology

Background:

• Understanding gender roles and personality traits is crucial in psychology.
• Existing measures of masculinity and femininity, such as the Adjective Check List (ACL), Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), and Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ), aim to capture these constructs.
• The convergent validity and factorial structure of these instruments require examination.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the masculinity (M) and femininity (F) subscale scores across the ACL, BSRI, and PAQ.
• To investigate the interrelationships and factorial structure of these measures in a student population.
• To determine if males and females respond similarly to the ACL's femininity subscale.

Main Methods:

• Administered the ACL, BSRI, and PAQ to 92 male and 131 female undergraduate psychology students.
• Correlated M and F subscale scores for each measure.
• Performed principal factor analysis with varimax rotation separately for males and females.

Main Results:

• The ACL-F subscale showed modest shared variance with BSRI and PAQ-F, and differential responding by gender.
• The ACL-M subscale exhibited a stronger negative relationship with F subscales compared to BSRI and PAQ-M.
• BSRI and PAQ M and F subscales demonstrated substantial shared variance within each measure for both genders.
• A distinct masculine and feminine factor emerged for both genders, explaining similar proportions of common variance.

Conclusions:

• The BSRI and PAQ appear to measure related constructs of masculinity and femininity consistently across genders.
• The ACL may capture different aspects of femininity or be interpreted differently by males and females.
• The study supports a two-factor (masculine and feminine) model of gender attributes, as evidenced by the BSRI and PAQ.