Sandra Bem

1
Sandra Bem

• Lindsay Farrar
• Rachel Wiedeman
• Sam Lytal
• Katie Richter

2
Overview

• Family/Academics
• Zeitgeist
• Historical Antecedents
• Personal Obstacles
• Bem Sex-Role Inventory
• Gender Schema Theory
• The Lenses of Gender
• An Unconventional Family

3
Family

• Born June 22, 1944
• Her father was a postal clerk and her mother was
  a secretary
• Financial struggle
• Parents always fighting
• Mother emphasized the need to work outside the
  home.

4
Early Academics

• Hillel Academy (kindergarten -8th grade)
• Jewish school
• Was not interested in what she studied here and
  did enough just to get by
• Her ideas about gender began during her time here
• Expulsion due to wearing pants

5
College Academics

• Carnegie-Mellon University
• Bachelors in psychology
• Hypothesis testing
• Developmental psychology
• Daryl Bem (assistant professor)
• Egalitarian marriage

6
College Academics

• University of Michigan
• Graduate school in child clinical psychology
• Ph.D dissertation
• The Role of Task Comprehension in Childrens
  Problem Solving

7
Professor Sandra Bem

• Seminars on Daryl and Sandra Bems marriage life
• An Unconventional Family
• Career comes first for both units in the marriage
• Equality of men and women
• Carnegie-Mellon until 1971 (assistant prof)
• Began to focus on ideas involving gender issues
  rather than the psychology of children
• Stanford University until 1978 (assistant prof)
• healthy person male female traits
• sexually-biased job discrimination
• The effects of gender-specific job advertisements
• BSRI Bem Sex Role Inventory
• Cornell University 1981 professor
• Psychology
• Director of Women Studies

8
Zeitgeist

• Social Climate of the 20th Century
• Women
• Gender Issues
• Inequality in the workforce

9
Historical Antecedents

• Psychology during the mid-1900s to late-1900s
• Behaviorism
• Humanistic Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Developmental Psychology

10
Historical Antecedents

• Developmental Psychology
• Majority of research during the time she was in
  grad school and after she graduated
• She was not interested in this so she began to
  experiment on her own original ideas of gender.

11
Personal Obstacles

• Family Problems
• Financial Issues
• Minority/Inequality Issues
• Jewish
• Very few women in Psychology programs
• It took longer for her to become a professor in
  psychology than it would take a man.
• She had her own ideas that she chose to study

12
Bem Sex-Role Inventory

• Description
• 60 personality characteristics
• Likert scale 1-7
• Three scores
• Administration Rules
• Male or female high school student or older
• 10 to 15 minutes
• Individual to large group

Bem, S. L. (1976). Bem sex-role inventory Bem,
S. L. (1974).
13
Scoring of BSR Inventory

• Masculinity Score
• Femininity Score
• Androgyny Score
• Difference between Masculinity Score and
  Femininity Score
• Conversion factor 2.322

Bem, S. L. (1974) Bem, S. L. (1975).
14
Androgyny?

• Meaning of Androgyny Score
• Androgyny
• Reflects the relative amount of masculinity and
  femininity that the person includes in his/her
  self-description.
• Best characterizes the nature of the total sex
  role and sex identity of the individual.

Bem, S. L. (1975) Bem, S. L. (1977).
15
Strengths of the BSRI

• Normative Data
• Stanford Introduction to Psychology Course
• 444 Males and 279 females
• Foothill Junior College
• 117 Males and 77 Females (paid volunteers)
• These normative samples helped create the cut
  points for the data and the conversion factor to
  calculate the Androgyny Score
• Large normative sample

Bem, S. L. (1976). Bem sex-role inventory Bem,
S. L. (1974).
16
More Strengths of the BSRI

• Both Masculine and Feminine characteristics
  included and they are on different continuums.
• Social Desirability Score
• To verify that the androgynous score is valid
• Applicability of the findings to other areas
• Inventory is easy to complete and has short
  administration time.

Bem, S. L. (1974) Bem, S. L. (1975) Bem, S. L.
(1977).
17
Weaknesses of the BSRI

• Face Valid
• Self-Evaluation only
• Created and Normed in 1970s

18
BSRI Influence on Future

• Masculinity and Femininity should be
  conceptualized on separate continuum.
• Androgyny research
• metrosexual
• Sex Typing Research
• Children and parenting

Bem, S. L. (1976). Sex typing and the avoidance
of cross-sex behavior Andersen, S. M., Bem, S.
L. (1981) Bem, S. L. (1974).
19
Gender Schema Theory Overview

• Conditioning
• Results
• Characteristics

20
Study 1 Gender Clustering in Free Recall

• The BSRI
• Experimental Phase Free Recall

21
Study 2 Gender-SchematicProcessing of the
Self-Concept

• Basic Self Concept
• Non-sex typed Self Concept

22
The Heterosexuality Subschema

• Common experiences
• Universal Symbolism
• Phone Attraction

23
The Antecedents of Gender-Based Schematic
Processing Some Speculations

• From the beginning children are taught two
  things
• Associations
• A Dichotomy

24
Strengths and Weaknesses

• Strengths
• Environment
• Methods of assessment
• Weaknesses
• Nature Verses Nurture

25
Consequences for the Future

• Consequences of gender typing

26
Lenses of Gender

• 1) Androcentrism
• 2) Biological Essentialism
• 3) Gender Polarization
• These 3 gender lenses provide the foundation for
  a theory of how biology, culture, and the
  individual psyche all interact in historical
  context to systematically reproduce male power.

27
Biological Essentialism

• Definition
• Division of labor
• Not the only way for society to function
• Differences should be considered, not devalued
• Yes, women might turn out to be more
  biologically nurturant than men on the average,
  but that should make them psychiatrists, not
  secretaries

28
Androcentrism

• Defines males (and male experience) as a standard
  or norm and females (and female experience) as a
  deviation from that norm.
• 3 explanations
• Judeo-Christian
• Greek Philosophy
• Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory

29
Gender Polarization

• Superimposes male-female differences on virtually
  every aspect of human experience (from modes of
  dress and social roles to ways of expressing
  emotion and sexual desire.)

30
Bems suggestion

• we need to sever all the culturally constructed
  connections that currently exist in our society
  between what sex a person is and virtually every
  other aspect of human experience

Bem, S. L. (1998). An Unconventional Family.
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An Unconventional Family

• Autobiographical account
• If The Lenses of Gender is the statement of my
  theory, An Unconventional Family is the statement
  of my practice
• Egalitarian Partners
• Feminist Child-rearing
• Interviews

Bem, S. L. (1998)
32
Summary

• Influential in personality and gender research
  through her work with the BSRI, the Gender Schema
  Theory, and theories of societal gender roles.
• Her writings influenced feminist thought and
  parenting beliefs.

33
Bibliography

• Andersen, S. M., Bem, S. L. (1981). Sex typing
  and androgyny in dyadic interaction Individual
  differences in responsiveness to physical
  attraction. Journal of Personality and Social
  Psychology, 41, 74 86.
• Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of
  psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting
  and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155 162.
• Bem, S. L. (1975). Sex role adaptability One
  consequence of psychological androgyny. Journal
  of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 634
  643.
• Bem, S. L. (1976). Bem sex-role inventory.
  Princeton, NJ Educational Testing Service.
• Bem, S. L. (1976). Sex typing and the avoidance
  of cross-sex behavior. Journal of Personality
  and Social Psychology, 33, 48 54.
• Bem, S. L. (1977). On the utility of alternative
  procedures for assessing psychological
  androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical
  Psychology, 45, 196 205.

34
Bibliography continued

• Bem, S. L. (1981). Gender schema theory A
  cognitive account of sex typing. Psychological
  Review, 88, 354 364.
• Bem, S. L. (1993). The Lenses of Gender. New
  Haven, CT Yale University Press.
• Bem, S. L. (1998). An Unconventional Family. New
  Haven, CT Yale University Press.
• Bettis, N. (n.d.). Sandra Ruth Lipsitz Bem.
  Retrieved June 18, 2007, from http//www.psych.co
  rnell.edu/sec/pubpeo ple/s1b8/s1b6_vita.pdf
• Koesterer, M.(n.d.). Dr. Sandra Lipsitz Bem An
  Unconventional Life. Retrieved June 18, 2007,
  from http//www.webster.edu/woolflm/sandrabem.ht
  ml
• Synder, M., Tanke, E. D., Berscheid, E. (1977).
  Social perception and interpersonal behavior On
  the self- fulfilling nature of social
  stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social
  Psychology, 35, 656 666.