Abstract
Sex role orientation, i.e., a person's masculinity or femininity, influences cognitive and emotional performance, like biological sex. While it is now widely accepted that sex differences are modulated by the hormonal status of female participants (menstrual cycle, hormonal contraceptive use), the question, whether hormonal status and sex hormones also modulate participants sex role orientation has hardly been addressed previously. The present study assessed sex role orientation and hormonal status as well as sex hormone levels in three samples of participants from two different cultures (Northern American, Middle European). Menstrual cycle phase did not affect participant's masculinity or femininity, but had a significant impact on reference group. While women in their follicular phase (low levels of female sex hormones) determined their masculinity and femininity in reference to men, women in their luteal phase (high levels of female sex hormones) determined their masculinity and femininity in reference to women. Hormonal contraceptive users rated themselves as significantly more feminine and less masculine than naturally cycling women. Furthermore, the impact of biological sex on the factorial structure of sex role orientation as well as the relationship of estrogen to masculinity/femininity was modulated by culture. We conclude that culture and sex hormones interactively affect sex role orientation and hormonal status of participants should be controlled for when assessing masculinity and/or femininity.
Highlights
Sex role orientation, referred to as gender role orientation, gender role identity, gender role self-concept, or gender-related self has been described as a person’s identification with personal attributes that are seen as appropriate for a typical man or woman in a given society, i.e., his or her degree of maleness or femaleness (e.g., Sieverding et al, 2005)
During the past decades it has come into focus, that sex differences are modulated by sex hormone levels and the hormonal status of female participants, i.e., menstrual cycle phase as well as hormonal contraceptive use
Does Culture or Hormonal Status Affect the Sex Role Self-concept? Culture Dependent Effects We did not observe any differences in masculinity and femininity ratings of men and women between the three samples in Kruskall–Wallis tests
Summary
Referred to as gender role orientation, gender role identity, gender role self-concept, or gender-related self has been described as a person’s identification with personal attributes that are seen as appropriate for a typical man or woman in a given society, i.e., his or her degree of maleness or femaleness (e.g., Sieverding et al, 2005) These attributes have revealed to be related to various behaviors in numerous psychological domains, as, for example, health (Lefkowitz and Zeldow, 2006; Zimmermann et al, 2011), occupation and work (Sieverding et al, 2005; Garcia-Retamero and Lopez-Zafra, 2009), education (Ritter, 2004; Wolfram et al, 2009; Kessels and Steinmayr, 2013) and cognitive performance (REFs). Spatial abilities have been repeatedly related to estradiol and testosterone levels, there is some discourse about the specific nature of the relationship (e.g., Tan, 2012), while results on the impact of sex hormone levels on verbal- and memory abilities are still inconsistent (e.g., Andreano and Cahill, 2009)
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