Both: How do you score on this gender role test?

submitted by worried19 from (self.GCdebatesQT)

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[–]reluctant_commenter 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I am kind of a nerd about tests like this, so I hope you don't mind me responding.

  1. Unfortunately most psych tests are like this. There's a lot of evidence to show that overall, people are pretty accurate on these tests! But there is probably a significant minority who do lie, for various reasons. And can very easily, as you mentioned.
  2. Not sure what you mean by neutral, but in the way they operationalized this test, masculinity is a 0-100 scale of its own and so is femininity. They don't cancel each other out, but rather, someone who scores super low on both is harder to pin down, period, regarding societal gender expectations.
  3. Most of these traits have a normal distribution. I think it's fair to say not all the traits in this test are equally gendered. But you have a good point; and in fact, I am pretty sure this test is not carefully weighted, because the title page said it's based on Sandra Bem's work and her test was not designed with statistical distributions in mind (unlike many psych tests!).
  4. Yeah, one-word adjectives might be a little rough. I think they can be prone to misunderstanding.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

How do you know they're accurate?

I find it hard answer these questions. Am I soothing? Sometimes. Am I likable? Sometimes. Am I jealous? Sometimes.

[–]reluctant_commenter 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

One of the ways researchers actually check whether or not people are responding accurately is by having them take the questionnaire, then having that person's close acquaintances score them on it. Of course-- there are a lot of exceptions to this. For example, if the test has poor and vague wording, then the person's self-score will probably differ a lot from what their friends think they would score on it. Also, some scales are harder for friends to guess at than others. A friend is probably a lot better at evaluating how outgoing you are than they are at guessing your current state of mental health.

But, regarding this particular questionnaire-- there are actually a lot of problems. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1980-29271-001

Because some of the items in this questionnaire are so obviously more socially desirable, or less socially desirable, you don't get as much insight from people's answers on the questionnaire because people are prone to responding in a socially desirable way.