Personality Factors of Men and Women Pastoral Candidates, Part 2: Sex-Role Preferences

Abstract

Bern Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) data were collected from 90 male and 114 female seminarians in Master of Divinity programs at 11 Protestant seminaries and from 26 male and 52 female Masters of Education students at two secular universities. Results indicated, first, that the seminarians, assumed to be deeply religious, differed from the Education students in responses to many BSRI items. Thus, the BSRI may be biased when used with religious subjects. Second, the original form of the BSRI was compared factorially with Bern's (1981) shortened revision; the new form is psychometrically superior. Third, the male seminarian BSRI responses did not differ from the female ones. However, male seminarians were higher in femininity and female seminarians higher in masculinity than the college men and women, respectively, tested by Kimlicka, Wakefield and Friedman (1980). These findings suggested a hypothesis that seminarians would be more androgynous and less same-sex typed than their Education peers. This hypothesis was confirmed.