Sex-role identity and sex-role ideology in college women with bulimic behavior

Abstract

This study investigated sex-role identity and sex-role ideology between college women who scored in the upper and lower quartiles on the BULIT, a test for bulimic behavior (Smith and Thelen, 1984). Participants were 304 college women from 18 to 49 years old who took the BULIT, a shortened Attitudes Toward Women Scale (ATW) (Spence, Helmreich and Stapp, 1973), the Sex-Role Ideology Scale (SRI) (Kalin & Tilby, 1978), the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) (Spence, Helmreich and Stapp, 1974), and some questions about demographic variables. The BULIT lower quartile group was found to score more in the feminist direction on the Attitudes Toward Women scale (p <.05) and more in the masculine direction on the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (p <.05) than the BULIT upper quartile group. Trends were shown toward higher feminist and masculine scores respectively by the BULIT lower quartile group on the Sex-Role Ideology scale and the androgyny scale of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire. One conclusion is that college women with bulimic behaviors tend to be more traditionally feminine in their sex-role identity and ideology than their non-bulimic peers.