An investigation of sex-role attitude and behavior congruence in females identified as psychologically androgynous or sex-typed

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Authors
Gaul, Mary
Advisor
Donn, Patsy A.
Issue Date
1982
Keyword
Degree
Thesis (D. Ed.)
Department
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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of sex-role identity and sex-role attitude congruence on behavior as measured by group leader choice.Research volunteers were 84 female undergraduates from a midwestern university who were identified as sextyped or androgynous, as measured by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, and as liberal or conservative in their sex-role attitudes, as measured by the short version of the Attitudes Toward Women Scale.Subjects were given resumes of four group leaders and asked to select the leader,they judged to be more competent in leadership skills and with whom they wished to work in a group experience. The four leader choices included two female resumes which reflected more indices of competence than the two male leader choices. Competency-based leader choice was indicated by selection of female leader. Genderbased leader choice was indicated by selection of male leader. It was predicted that androgynous liberal subjects would demonstrate competency-based leader choice more frequently than androgynous conservative subjects, and that sex-typed conservative subjects would demonstrate competencybased leader choice less frequently than sex-typed liberal subjects.A differences in proportions test was employed to test comparisons in the sex-typed and androgynous categories with respect to success as measured by competency-based leader choice. Comparisons were made between sex-typed liberal and conservative and between androgynous liberal and conservative cells. A .05 confidence level was necessary to reject the null hypotheses. Analysis of the data indicated that there were no significant differences in leader choice in the two categories. Congruence of sexrole identity and sex-role attitude in sex-typed and androgynous subjects was not found to effect behavior as measured by competency-based group leader choice.