Sex-role Attitudes Research Articles

Women's Sex Role Attitudes and Life Satisfaction

Abstract Feminist writers of the 1960s and 1970s argued that women were suffering emotional and psychological stress by adhering to traditionally feminine sex roles, and encouraged women to seek their own careers and change their views of women's roles in society. The purpose here is to test that argument by analyzing samples of women interviewed in national surveys between 1972 and 1978. The author concludes that the feminist writers were overstating the problems of the housewife, and that although many women have gone into new career fields, many other women with traditional sex-role attitudes are happy with their lives.

Cultural sex-role expectations and children's sex-role concepts

Middle-class children between the ages of 4 and 8 were interviewed about their sex-role attitudes, in order to determine the extent to which recently changing cultural mores have influenced children's sex-role concepts. The children were asked about their career goals; the careers they would choose if they were the opposite sex; the reasons why they like being a boy or girl; and their opinions regarding the appropriateness of men and women participating in 14 sex-stereotypic occupations and activities. The children's parents provided demographic information. The children expressed very nonstereotypic attitudes towards the 14 occupations and activities, compared to children in recent studies; but they chose very traditional careers for their own choices and opposite-sex career choices, and often gave stereotypic reasons for preferring their own sex. Parents' education, mothers' employment status, fathers' nontraditional careers, and the children's gender predict responses to several of the sex-role-related questions. Implications for research are discussed.

Sex-role attitudes, curriculum choice, and career ambition: A comparison between women in typical and atypical college majors

This study of college women examines the relationship among sex-role attitudes, curriculum choice, and levels of educational and occupational aspirations and expectations. Data for analysis are from a 1977 survey of college students enrolled in home economics and agricultural curriculums in all southern land grant colleges and universities. Results show that sex-role ideology is only weakly associated with curriculum choice but is related to career ambitions for women in sex-typical and sex-atypical areas of study.

Black and White Fathers' Attitudes toward Children's Sex Roles

Using Bem's Sex-role Inventory, sex-role attitudes were collected from 100 white and 60 black middle-class fathers. Analysis indicated that both black and white fathers held significantly more masculine sex-role attitudes toward their sons and more feminine sex-role attitudes toward their daughters. Also, white fathers expressed significantly more androgynous attitudes towards daughters and sons than did black fathers.

Self-Ratings and Projected Ratings of Sex Role Attitudes

To ascertain the veridicality of projected attitudes toward sex role behavior, 74 male and 74 female undergraduates filled out the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) using three different targets: self, typical female classmate, and typical male classmate. Analyses of variance on respondents' total AWS scores and on the six AWS subscale scores showed significant interactions between sex of respondent and sex of target for all seven variables. Since the directions of the interactions were not consistent across subscales, the results indicated the methodological necessity of using measurements which examine a variety of specific subclasses of sex role behaviors (rather than using unidimensional scales or total test scores) when stereotypic sex role attitudes are sought. In general, both sexes were found to have a fairly accurate perception of women's attitudes, but both sexes consistently perceived the typical male as more conservative than the male self-ratings justified.

Television viewing and adult sex-role attitudes

Although American television programs present highly stereotyped sex roles, no previous studies have shown in adults a relationship between sex-role stereotyping and TV viewing behavior. The present study assessed 78 college students' self-descriptions in relation to their TV viewing behavior. The results indicated that the amount of sex-role stereotyping in self-descriptions was positively correlated with amount of TV viewing of stereotyped programs. These findings were replicated with a group of 19 elderly adults.

Sex-Role Attitudes of Drug Abuse Treatment Counselors

This study examined the sex-role attitude of the drug abuse treatment counselor as a function of the sex of the counselor, the sex of the client, and the treatment approach (drug free versus methadone maintenance). Two versions of a stimulus vignette depicting a typical client, identical except for the sex of the client, were developed. Counselors rated this hypothetical client on an author developed Attitude Toward Addiction Scale. Findings indicated that: 1) male counselors viewed clients of both sexes more negatively than did female counselors; 2) male clients were viewed more negatively than female clients by counselors of both sexes; 3) counselors in drug free treatment programs viewed clients more negatively than did counselors in methadone maintenance programs; and 4) counselors with less education had more negative attitudes.

Testing an Undertested Comparison: Maternal Effects on Sons' and Daughters' Attitudes toward Women in the Labor Force

This paper examines the relationship between a mother's work status and educational level and the sex-role attitudes (toward women in the labor fbrce) of her offspring. Although several studies have addressed the issue of the mother's influence on sex-role attitudes, these studies have analyzed results jfbrfemales exclusively or have not explicitly compared results for males and females. The studies which have attempted a comparison have produced inconsistent findings and have been based on college samples, making generalization difficult. Using 1977 data obtained from NOR C, this study compares the effects of maternal characteristics on the sexrole attitudes of males and females. Results suggest that the association between maternal characteristics and attitudes toward women in the labor force is stronger for males than it is for females. An explanation for the differential impact of the mother is provided. The paper underscores the need to investigate males and females in sex-role research. With the ascendance of the women's move

Effect of Communicating Experimenter Attitudes on Subject Response to a Sex-Role Attitude Questionnaire

Summary Eight male and 13 female assistants communicated nontraditional sex-role attitudes to one group of undergraduate and graduate students and traditional sex-role attitudes to another group (N = 418) and then administered a sex-role attitude questionnaire. Subjects in the “nontraditional” group gave fewer traditional responses than those in the “traditional” group. Sex of the experimenter was not a significant variable.

Sex-Role Attitudes and Social Class: A Reanalysis and Clarification

Sex-Role Attitudes and Social Class: A Reanalysis and Clarification

Bulimia nervosa: sex role attitude, sex role behavior, and sex role related locus of control in bulimarexic women.

Thirty-four women with bulimia nervosa and 34 women without bulimarexic symptoms (but matched for age, weight, deviance from ideal weight, and educational status) were compared as to how liberated their attitude towards the woman's role in society (= their sex role attitude, SRA) and their actual own behavior as females (= their sex role behavior, SRB) were. The degree to which their general attitude towards sex role and their own sex role behavior differed from each other was also investigated. Experimental and control group were also compared concerning their sex role related locus of control (SRLC). SRA and SRB were significantly less liberated in the bulimarexic group than in the control group. In addition, the bulimarexic group showed a wide gap between their general attitude (SRA) and actual behavior (SRB) as to the degree of liberation. No such discrepancy was found in the control subjects. The sex related locus of control data showed that bulimarexic women had significantly higher external and fatalistic control, and lower internal control than the comparison subjects.

Sex-role prescriptions and attitudes of physical educators

The perception of sex-role prescriptions and attitudes of physical educators seem to be related. The results suggest that sensitivity to the changing role of women in society and to the constraints of traditional sex-role definitions should be considered for their potential impact on female students. While this study has focused on attitudes toward females, future analyses of teaching behaviors, classroom situation construction, and curricular objectives in relation to the sex-role prescriptions of our society could provide the basis for maximizing the development of the physical potential of both females and males.

Feminism and marital dissatisfaction

A questionnaire measuring sex-role attitudes was completed by 809 readers of a popular women's magazine, along with the Kipnis Marital Power Questionnaire and items concerned with marital and sexual happiness. Feminist women were less satisfied with their relationship both generally and sexually, and had a slightly lower frequency of sexual intercourse than traditional women. Analysis of the means used to wield power within the relationship showed that feminist women were more given to confrontation than accomodation, which might account for their marital difficulties. Another type of woman who tended to be unhappy in her marriage was the traditional domestic woman who favoured emotional manipulation as a means of influence within the relationship. Results were consistent with previous findings in showing that happiness decreased with age, duration of marriage and number of children.

Effect of Experimenter's Gender on Responses to a Sex-Role Attitude Questionnaire

Previous experiments have demonstrated that the gender of an experimenter will influence a subject's responses to a sex-role attitude questionnaire. The present study was designed to determine if the effect of the experimenter's gender could be modified as a function of instruction set. Although effects of experimenter's and subject's gender were significant and consistent with previous findings, no significant main effect of instruction was found. There was, however, a significant interaction of subjects' gender and instruction.

Family background, sex-role attitudes, and life goals of technical college and university students

Questionnaires that assessed family background, educational goals, career goals, preferred and expected career commitment, and sex-role attitudes were completed by 763 male and female undergraduates. The women expressed significantly more nontraditional goals and attitudes than women in previous studies, but the female respondents' goals and attitudes differ significantly from their male classmates. The correlations between several sex-role-related goals and attitudes are significant for both men and women. Parents' educational attainment, mothers' careers, and religious upbringing are the background variables that most strongly predict traditional/nontraditional goals and sex-role attitudes. The predictive powers of the background traits differ for men and women, and these results are often inconsistent with results of previous studies. Implications for related research are discussed.

First and Third Person Pronouns in Sex Role Questionnaires

First and third person wording of items on a sex role attitude questionnaire were examined. No correlation was found between women's scores on two versions of the Wellesley Role Orientation Scale (WROS) which were identical except for the pronouns. These results suggest that despite similar content, items worded in the first person are not equivalent to third person items as measures of sex roles. Third person scores of women were much higher than first person scores and were similar to third person scores of men. This was interpreted as indicating that normative expectations regarding women's roles are far more traditional than stated preferences of college women in the sample studied.

Short-Term Treatment Effects on Sex-Role Attitudes

Short-Term Treatment Effects on Sex-Role Attitudes

Age at first birth and family size: evidence from a longitudinal study.

The relationship of age at 1st birth and subsequent fertility was examined by introducing into the analysis some measures of orientation toward family roles not usually available in other studies. The data source was a longitudinal study spanning the 1962-77 period. The sample drawn from 1961 birth and marriage registrations constitutes a probability sample of all white women in the Detroit metropolitan area who had just married or who had just had a 1st 2nd or 4th birth. 5 interviews were completed during this period. Excellent response rates were obtained throughout the study with 1157 women constituting 89% of the original sample still participating in 1977. The findings confirmed the expected negative association between age at 1st birth and completed family size. For the sample as a whole the average number of children ever born in 1977 declined monotonically with age at 1st birth. Within separate parity groups the relationship of fertility to age at 1st birth was not as strong and somewhat less regular but a monotonic inverse relationship again appeared within parity groups (with 1 minor exception) when respondentss background (wifes education religion and number of siblings; respondents fathers education and occupation) were controlled. Of the background variables wifes religion exerted the strongest effect on the relationship between fertility and age at 1st birth. Catholic women had larger families than other women and also married at older ages. Work experience between marriage and 1962 including current work was associated positively with age at 1st birth. The differentials in the proportion with some work since marriage associated with age at 1st birth were sizable and the differences were statistically significant for parities 0 1 and 2. The combined index of sex role attitudes had no regular relationship to age at 1st birth. Women who were very young at 1st birth (under age 20) in every parity group did express more traditional attitudes but there were no attitudinal differentials associated with later ages at 1st birth. When the 3 role orientation variables were added to the regression analysis they had no effect on the age at 1st birth/fertility relationship beyond that accounted for by the background variables. Neither home oriented behavior nor traditional sex role attitudes accounted for the higher fertility of women who had their 1st birth at an early age. Women who had an early 1st birth went on to have larger families than women who postponed childbearing longer.

Wives' Employment, Household Behaviors, and Sex-Role Attitudes

Wives' Employment, Household Behaviors, and Sex-Role Attitudes

Wives' Employment, Household Behaviors, and Sex-Role Attitudes

Wives' Employment, Household Behaviors, and Sex-Role Attitudes