Stability of expressive and instrumental traits in an adolescent female population

A sample of adolescent females were followed longitudinally from the sophomore to the senior year in high school. The personality traits of expressivity and instrumentality as measured by the Bem Sex Role Inventory were assessed yearly in order to determine trait stability. Both expressivity and instrumentality were very stable across grades. Correlation coefficients were statistically significant (p less than .001) for both traits across grades. Subjects were further categorized as androgynous, sextyped, undifferentiated, or cross-sextyped using a median split procedure. A transition matrix was constructed in order to tabulate shifts between categories across grades. Again, trait stability was reflected, approximately half (48%) of the response patterns never shifted categories during the high school years.