The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

52 Chapter 2

than keeping them separate. Women were

found to leave a stimulus open, to make

round or blunt edges, and to make lines that

pointed inward. The content of the objects

men and women drew also was found to

differ: Men drew nude women, skyscrapers,

and dynamic objects, whereas women drew

animals, flowers, houses, and static objects.

Interestingly, Franck and Rosen (1949)

did not conclude that a male and a female

who receive the same score on the test are

the same in terms of masculinity and femi-

ninity. In fact, they argued that the draw-

ings of a male who receives a feminine score

are quite bizarre and very different from the

drawings of a female who receives a feminine

consisted of items reflecting altruism, emo-

tional sensitivity, sexual preference, prefer-

ence for certain occupations, and gender

identity questions. The most notable feature

in the development of this scale is that the

femininity items were validated on 13 homo-

sexuals. Homosexual men were compared

to heterosexual male soldiers; at that time,

heterosexual male soldiers epitomized mas-

culinity and homosexual men were consid-

ered feminine. In fact, feminine traits were

considered to be a predisposing factor to ho-

mosexuality in men (Terman & Miles, 1936).

Women were not even involved in research

to evaluate femininity. Thus we can see at

least two major problems with this instru-

ment: First, women were not involved in the

conceptualization of the female gender role;

second, only 13 homosexual men were in-

volved in the study, which is hardly sufficient

to validate an instrument even if they had

been the appropriate population.

Some researchers became concerned

about the self-report methodology used to

assess M/F. The purpose of the tests might

have been obvious, which could lead men

and women to give socially desirable rather

than truthful responses. The concern focused

on demand characteristics. Thus several pro-

jective tests of M/F were developed, includ-

ing one by Franck and Rosen (1949). They

developed a test that consisted of incomplete

drawings, like the stimuli shown in the first

column of Figure 2.6.

Franck and Rosen began with 60 stim-

uli, asked men and women to complete the

drawings, and found sex differences in the

way that 36 of the 60 were completed. These

36 stimuli then comprised the test. How did

men and women differ in their drawings?

Men were found to be more likely to close

off the stimuli, make sharper edges, include

angles, and focus on unifying objects rather

Sample Stimulus Masculine Scored Feminine Scored

FIGURE 2.6 Examples of the kinds of in-

complete drawings that appeared on Franck and

Rosen’s (1949) projective test of masculinity/

femininity. How the drawings were completed was

taken as an indication of masculinity or femininity.

The second column represents masculine ways of

completing the drawings and the third column rep-

resents feminine ways of completing the drawings.

Source: Adapted from Franck and Rosen (1949).

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