Measurement of Gender Roles

Gender – Psychological Theories

In this course, Professor Peter Hegarty (University of Surrey) explores the psychology of gender. In the first lecture, we think about different ways of measuring one’s psychological gender, focusing in particular on the most widely used system, the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BRSI). In the second lecture, we think about the history of sex and gender as distinct concepts. In the third, fourth and fifth lectures, we consider how three psychological theories have intersected with the psychology of gender – cognitive psychology, psychoanalytic theory, and social learning theory. In the sixth and final module, we think about the extent to which the psychology of gender has accommodated the experience of those who identify as transgender or nonbinary, and how the psychology of gender might evolve in the future.

Measurement of Gender Roles

In this lecture, we think about the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) as a means of measuring psychological gender, focusing particular on: (i) how the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) worked and the four possible results – ‘masculine’, ‘feminine’, ‘undifferentiated’ and ‘androgynous’; (ii) the impact of feminism on psychology in the 1970s – and why this mattered; (iii) other attempts to measure psychological gender, including that of Lewis Terman and Catherine Cox Miles (1936) and Janet Taylor Spence’s Personal Attributes Questionnaire (1973); (iv) the key differences between the Terman-Miles text and the Bem Sex-Role Inventory; and (v) potential criticisms of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory.