Sex roles and type A behavior

Psychological Gender of Men With Systolic Heart Failure

Diminished exercise capacity is a fundamental symptom of heart failure (HF), which is particularly disadvantageous for men for whom exercise capacity contributes significantly to their gender identity, self-esteem, and quality of life. In this study, we aimed to examine whether psychological gender would be different in men with systolic HF as compared with their healthy peers. The authors examined 48 men with systolic HF (age = 64 ± 10 years; body mass index = 28.3 ± 3.4 kg/m2; NYHA I/II/III [%] = 25/65/10; left ventricular ejection fraction [LVEF] = 32.1 ± 7.8%) and 15 age-matched healthy men. Based on the results of the Polish version of the Bem Sex Role Inventory, the examined men were divided into four types of psychological gender: “masculine” (M), “feminine” (F), “unspecified” (U), and “androgynous” (A). None of the men with HF presented M type of psychological gender, whereas this type was found in 27% of the healthy men ( p = .0002). The prevalence of both A (38% vs. 47%) and F (10% vs. 20%, both p > .05) types of psychological gender was similar between men with HF versus without HF. More men with HF fulfilled the criteria of the U type of psychological gender as compared with healthy peers (51% vs. 7%, p = .002). Men with HF and the F type of psychological gender were treated with spironolactone more frequently than those classified with the U and A types (both p < .05). The lack of “psychologically masculine” and the overrepresentation of “psychologically unspecified” gender types in the HF group suggests that psychological gender may be affected among men with HF.

A sex- and gender-based analysis of allostatic load and physical complaints

BACKGROUND

Biological sex and sociocultural gender influence stress-related diseases. Our goal was to explore whether sex and gender roles would predict both allostatic load and physical complaints.

OBJECTIVE

This study investigated whether sex- and gender-based factors would correspond to objective and subjective health outcomes.

METHODS

Thirty Montreal workers (mean [SE] age, 45.4 [2.1] years) participated. The 30-item Bem Sex Role Inventory was administered to assess scores for masculinity and femininity, which were then transformed into an androgyny index representing gender roles along a continuum. Fifteen biomarkers representing neuroendocrine, immune, metabolic, and cardiovascular systems were aggregated into an allostatic load index measuring physiological dysregulations. The 42-item Wahler Physical Symptoms Inventory was used to measure self-rated physical complaints.

RESULTS

Results using logistic and linear regressions controlling for age revealed that increased masculinity predicted inclusion in the high allostatic load group (P = 0.010; odds ratio = 0.715), and sex did not; increased masculinity and female sex together predicted increased physical complaints (P = 0.008; adjusted r(2)= 0.30); and high allostatic load group membership corresponded to increased physical complaints adjusted (P = 0.001; adjusted r(2) = 0.301).

CONCLUSIONS

That higher masculinity was related to increased objective physiological dysregulations and subjective physical complaints suggests an increased vulnerability to hyperarousal pathologies, such as cardiovascular disease, among masculine-typed individuals.

Female offenders: criminal behavior and gender-role identity

Relationship between gender-role identity and criminal activities for 141 incarcerated adult female offenders was examined. Inmates were classified into three gender-role groups: masculine, feminine, and androgynous. Those with either masculine or feminine gender-role identities were more apt to be serving time for violent offenses such as murder than were the androgynous women. Relatively few feminine offenders serving time for murder had previously been convicted of a felony while the majority of the masculine offenders had. Differences were found in the number of prior felony convictions for the gender-role groups.

A pilot study assessing type A behavior in violence-prone inmates

This study compared the Type A tendencies reported on the Behavior Activity Profile questionnaire and those yielded by a taped-voice analysis of 34 male prison inmates convicted for a variety of violent offenses. The primary objective was to provide prison officials with an instrument for detecting repeated assaulters from nonassaulters. The secondary objective was to determine which of the two Type A assessment techniques was more predictive of prisoners' status as assaulters. The multivariate analysis indicated that the profile, prisoners' length of sentence, and number of convictions accounted for 88% of the variance in grouping, assaulter or nonassaulter. Implications for prison administrators and researchers were discussed.

Sex-role orientation as a predictor of preferential cognitive response style

This study investigated the relationship between sex-role orientation and cognitive preferential response style (N = 60). It attempted to use scores on the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) to predict the Erlebnistypus (EB) ratio of the Rorschach. Although masculine and androgynous individuals were expected to demonstrate extratensive and intraversive cognitive styles, respectively, no such distinction was apparent. However, feminine individuals did demonstrate significantly an ambitent response style in which neither human movement nor weighted color was dominant. Results were discussed in terms of increased construct validity for both of the measures utilized.

The relationship between sex-role orientation and the type A behavior pattern: a test of the main effect hypothesis

Examined the relationship between sex-role orientation and the Type A behavior pattern. Eighty undergraduates were classified as high or low on masculinity and femininity on the basis of Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) formed on student Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) scores for pooled Ss, for males, and for females; each yielded a main effect for masculinity. JAS scores were correlated positively with BSRI Masculinity scores and not correlated with BSRI Femininity scores across pooled Ss, across males, and across females. These results are discussed in terms of their research and treatment implications.