PSYC 1315 1st Edition Lecture 23 Last Lecture Gender sex sexuality Current Lecture Gender sex sexuality Bem Sex Role Inventory BSRI Developed by Sandra Bem in 1974 Masculinity and femininity have been long conceptualized as bipolar ends of a single continuum The BSRI contains both a masculinity AND femininity scale Item Selection A personality characteristic qualified as masculine if it was independently judged by both males and females raters to be significantly more desirable for a man than for a woman opposite for feminine characteristics Bem Sex Role Inventory People who were high on both dimensions were considered to be androgynous People who are androgynous can incorporate both masculinity and femininity into their personalities They feel comfortable engaging in any kind of behavior depending on the situation whether it is stereotyped as masculine or feminine Cross Sex Behavior Bem Lenney 1976 Hypothesized that sex typed individuals high on M or high on F would prefer sexappropriate activities and resist sex inappropriate activities more than those who are androgynous They also predicted that sex typed individuals would experience discomfort and even temporary loss of self esteem if required to perform cross sex behavior Results Sex typed individuals tended to prefer an activity simply because of its stereotype as sex appropriate Sex typed individuals felt significantly worse after performing a cross sex behavior that participants who were androgynous Results When performing cross sex behavior in front of an opposite sex experimenter sex typed individuals felt less comfortable than those who were androgynous In the presence of a same sex experimenter sex typed individuals reported feeling less masculine if they were male or less feminine if they were female than any of the other participants Gender Differences Differences in Aggression overt aggression physical verbal harm males more than females relational aggression harm social standing females more than males why the difference testosterone evolutionary pressures socialization Sexual Orientation Direction of erotic interests refers to more than just sexual behavior Orientations Heterosexual 90 of population homosexual bisexual Sexual Behavior What Constitutes Sexual Behavior infidelity or loss of virginity activities involved in reproduction arousal and sexual response unusually intimate and personal activity as defined by the participants
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