Bem Sex Role Inventory

Gender is a construct that has changed and come under much scrutiny in the most recent years. It differs from sex in the sense that gender is determined primarily by one’s own culture and the societal rules laid down upon them. A family raising a child often dictates what the child plays with, what it watches, and primarily, what type of gender-specific content they familiarise themselves with. There are so many individual differences in gender, so can they be measured? The Bem, sex role inventory, was designed as an attempt to measure gender,

• First, we will define androgyny and look at masculine and feminine roles.
• Next, we will learn about Bem’s androgyny test.
• Then, we will learn about the characteristics of Bem’s scale.
• Finally, we will review the advantages and disadvantages of Bem’s androgyny test.

Masculine and Feminine Roles

That’s not to say that gender doesn’t have some innate qualities. Still, we need to explore gender from a psychological perspective. What if someone does not fit into the gender norms?

Sandra Bem was the first to advocate for psychological androgyny, claiming that a person can have both masculine and feminine characteristics. According to Bem, androgyny is a psychologically beneficial trait because it allows people to avoid rigid sex-role assumptions. They are seen as adaptable.

Fig. 1. An androgynous person is someone with masculine or feminine traits.

Can you think of stereotypically masculine characteristics or roles? Society views masculine people as tall, strong, muscular, and assertive. They are the breadwinner of the family, unemotional, and work in jobs that have a leadership role.

On the other hand, society views feminine people as modest, small, nurturing, and sensitive. They work in assisting or nurturing roles.

Masculine, Feminine, and Androgynous Test

In psychology, countless research studies have been done on gender roles and societal expectations. The Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) was first published in 1974 and offered four different kinds of classifications: androgynous, masculine, feminine, and undifferentiated (which was added in 1981).

Participants were asked to rate themselves on a Likert scale. On this scale, one indicates ‘almost never true’ and seven indicates ‘almost always true’.

Individuals below the average score were undifferentiated, which was added in 1981.

However, because this is a self-report questionnaire, the accuracy with which participants score themselves determines how valid the assessment is.

Extreme masculine and feminine scores result in an androgynous score, whereas extremely low masculine and feminine scores result in an undifferentiated score.

Bem Androgyny Test Definition

In 1974, Bem created the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) to challenge the belief that if an individual did not behave as expected of their gender, it was a sign of poor mental health. Bem believed individuals who are androgynous were best suited to their environment; i.e., those who embodied both genders had the healthiest psychological state.

The test had statements of opinion, and participants rated how much they agreed with them. The questionnaire has two subscales, each with sixty questions. One question set tests for 20 masculine traits, another for 20 feminine traits, and 20 neutral items. The questions are to test how feminine or masculine you are.

If you score above average on both scales, you are considered androgynous. All traits are positively valued traits.

Bem surveyed 100 undergraduate students at Stanford who was given 200 traits that they found socially desirable for each sex. They then had to narrow down the list to 40 traits they found desirable and 20 neutral traits.

Androgyny Scale

Let’s take a closer look at the BSRI androgyny scale.

The androgyny scale gave participants seven options for each question.

• 1 = Never or almost never true

• 2 = Usually not true

• 3 = Sometimes but infrequently true

• 4 = Occasionally true

• 5 = Often true

• 6 = Usually true

• 7 = Almost or almost always true

The participant would go through all the traits and write down what number most corresponds to their beliefs.

As you can see, there is a wide range of traits.

The participant would write their number on a separate scoring sheet when taking the test. The scoring sheet was oriented so the answers were written into six columns. When scoring the test, the moderator would add the responses in each column to get a total. Two of the six columns had only masculine traits, and two only had feminine traits.

Each column would be added to get the final masculine and feminine characteristics score. Finally, the moderator would subtract the feminine traits from the masculine traits to get the final Bem score.

If the Bem score was -20 or under, the person would be labelled as feminine. If the score were over +20, they would be masculine. The middle range from -9 to +9 is the androgynous zone.

BSRI Evaluation

There are various criticisms of the BSRI.

The Validity of the BSRI

According to Bem, the BSRI has a lot of empirical support. BSRI has also shown a high level of test-retest reliability. A partial replication of the approach employed by Bem (1974) to validate the instrument’s masculine and feminine adjectives was carried out. Bem’s criteria were used to validate all but two of the adjectives.

Fig. 2. What traits would you view as androgynous?

Criticism of the BSRI

Each scoring technique’s level of dependability is debatable. When the old t-ratio rating was compared to the newly endorsed median split technique, 42.3% of participants were categorised differently. Because the median split technique relies more largely on the samples’ data, a participant can be classified differently depending on the population of subjects studied.

The BSRI may also oversimplify gender-associated traits.

We also have to consider the society itself, as often, a culture dictates what traits are desirable and what traits are not. Consider an individualistic society, where competitiveness and self-efficacy are encouraged, typically in a male-dominated culture.

This contrasts with a collectivist society, where social cohesion is encouraged, and competitiveness is often discouraged. And this could affect what traits are shown, and androgynous people should supposedly be the best suited for a completely equal society.