Gender role and psychological adjustment

Three hundred and sixty-six university students (158 males and 208 females) completed a three-part questionnaire. The first two parts consisted of self-report inventories to assess psychological adjustment (Eysenck's Neuroticism Scale and Lanyon's Alienation Scale). The third part assessed gender role (Bem's Sex Role Inventory). Androgyny was scored as per both the Bem (1974) system and the Spence et al. (1975) system, and the groups obtained by these two systems were separately analyzed for differences in psychological adjustment scores. Feminine individuals (regardless of biological gender or system of classification) obtained less adjusted scores, and this was especially significant for males. It was also found that the Spence et al. system had more predictive power than the Bem system for classifying individuals.