Two Traditions of Research on Gender Identity

Key takeaways

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Bibliography: Wood, W., Eagly, A.H., 2015. Two Traditions of Research on Gender Identity. Sex Roles 73, 461–473. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-015-0480-2

Authors:: Wendy Wood, Alice H. Eagly

Collections:: Gender Scale

First-page: 461

Abstract

Gender identity reflects people’s understanding of themselves in terms of cultural definitions of female and male. In this article, we identify two traditions of research on gender identity that capture different aspects of masculine and feminine gender roles. The classic personality approach to gender identity differentiates communal from agentic traits and interests. The gender self-categorization approach comprises identification with the social category of women or men. Based on the compatibility principle, each approach should predict behaviors within the relevant content domain. Thus, personality measures likely predict communal and agentic behaviors, whereas gender self-categorization measures likely predict group-level reactions such as ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation. Researchers have the option of using one or the other conception of gender identity, depending on their particular question of interest. Relying primarily on research conducted in the U.S., we show that both traditions provide insight into the ways that gendered self concepts link the social roles of women and men with their individual cognitions, emotions, and behaviors.

Citations

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Reading notes

Imported on 2025-04-27 17:42

⭐ Important

& Gender identity reflects people’sunderstandingof themselves in terms of cultural definitions of female and male. (p. 461)
& The classic personality approach to gender identity differentiates communal from agentic traits and interests. The gender self-categorization approach comprises identification with the social category of women or men. (p. 461)
& Gender consists of the meanings ascribed to male and female social categories within a culture. (p. 461)
& When people incorporate these cultural meanings into their own psyches, then gender becomes part of their identities. Through these gender identities, individuals understand themselves in relation to the culturally feminine and masculine meanings attached to men and women, and they may think and act according to these gendered aspects of their selves (Wood and Eagly 2010,2012). (p. 461)
& distinguishing the cultural concepts of gender and gender identity from the social category of sex, which we define by its common-language meaning as Beither of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and many other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions^ (Bsex,^ n.d.). (p. 461)
& Gender identity is thus one part of a many-sided conception of the self, which is a key aspect of human psychology that situates individuals within social structures (e.g., Epstein 1973; Stets and Burke 2000). (p. 462)
& Self-definitions that represent gender identity differ from other individual-level gender constructs, such as whether people hold favorable or unfavorable attitudes toward men or women, approve of traditional or egalitarian gender relations, or hold stereotypic beliefs about the traits and abilities of women and men. (p. 462)
& Gender Identity Based on Feminine and Masculine Attributes Research in this tradition began with Terman and Miles’s (1936) test of masculinity and femininity (p. 462)
& Constantinople (1973) critiqued these early measures of masculinity and femininity, especially faulting their empirically-driven selection of test items that resulted in highly diverse item content. Constantinople showed that statistical analyses of such items often revealed multiple dimensions and not a single bipolar masculinefeminine dimension. (p. 462)
& Bem (1974) and (Spence et al. 1975; Spence and Helmreich 1978) articulated a novel framework in which masculinity and femininity comprise two separate dimensions, thus avoiding the masculinity-femininity tradeoffs inherent in a single bipolar dimension. (p. 462)
& Constructing gender identity measures based on traits is sensible given evidence that social perceivers think in terms of traits by spontaneously inferring them from observed behavior (Uleman et al. 1996). Moreover, masculine and feminine personality traits are highly accessible when social perceivers think about women and men (e.g., Broverman et al. 1972; Deaux and Lewis 1984). (p. 462)
& Initial research in this tradition classified respondents into categories based on their scores on the masculine and 462 Sex Roles (2015) 73:461–47 (p. 462)
& feminine dimensions, yielding four groups of individuals: (a) masculine sex-typed, who scored high on masculinity and low on femininity, (b) feminine sex-typed, who scored high on femininity and low on masculinity, (c) androgynous,who scored high on both masculinity and femininity, and (d) undifferentiated, who scored low on both masculinity and femininity. (p. 463)
& methodologists have argued that such personality measures should be represented by continuous scales that are then subjected to regression analyses (e.g., Hall and Taylor 1985; see also MacCallum et al. 2002). These two-dimensional schemes wrested gender identity from its earlier bipolar framingandenabledresearchon androgyny, or the combination of masculine and feminine qualities (e.g., Bem and Lewis 1975). The concept of androgyny resonated with feminists’ rejection of traditional gender roles (e.g., Weisstein 1968). The feminist movement presented the dilemma of simultaneously rejecting traditional gender roles (e.g., Friedan 1963) and promoting the importance of feminine traits and values (e.g., Gilligan 1982). (p. 463)
& Masculine and feminine interests, in terms of occupations, hobbies, and everyday activities, provide yet another type of gender identity measure. Lippa (1991; Lippa and Connelly 1990) developed a method of gender diagnosticity using these interest preferences. (p. 464)
& People may categorize themselves in a descriptive sense of being a typical man or women or in a prescriptive sense of being an ideal person of each gender (Prislin and Wood 2005). (p. 464)