The Impact of Gendered Physical Activities and Athletic Participation on Sex Roles

1. The Impact of Gendered Physical Activities and Athletic Participation on Sex Roles Jennifer Holberg, Kate Jubinville, Rebekka Lee and Elizabeth Steinberg Mount Holyoke College

2. Introduction • An important topic of sport psychology is athlete self-concept • Past research • Hall, Durborow, and Progen, 1986 • classified sports as either masculine or feminine; this was the basis for our 1st independent variable • Marsh and Jackson, 1986 • focus was to determine if there is any correlation between women in athletics and their self-concepts of masculinity and femininity • Myers and Lips, 1978 • female athletes in a competitive situation were more androgynous than those in a non-competitive situation

3. Introduction continued • Bem Study of 1974 • Psychological androgyny • Developed a 60 item survey to measure one’s ability to perform flexible sex-roles • Closest to 0 = most androgynous • More feminine = positive • More masculine = negative

4. Variables • IV 1: Gendered physical activities (boxing, ballet, control); IV 2: Athlete/Non-athlete • Dependent: Score on Bem Sex-Role Inventory • Purpose of our study • To examine masculinity, femininity, and androgyny through participation in a physical activity and between athletes and non-athletes. • Based on Hall, et al. and Marsh and Jackson, as well as stereotypes of women in sports, we predicted that participants’ sex role rating would be dependent on the activity in which they participated. • Based on Myers and Lips and Bem, we predicted that athletes would be more androgynous than non-athletes.

5. Participants 96 participants: 31 boxing, 32 control, 33 ballet 41 athletes, 55 non-athletes Randomly assigned Materials Bem Sex-Role Inventory Gendered outfits for each activity leader Music Athlete/Non-athlete questionnaire Method

6. Procedure • Participants were randomly placed into 3 groups: boxing (masculine), ballet (feminine), or control (neutral) • Next, participants were given the Bem Sex-Role Inventory and an additional survey that determined athlete and non-athlete • Athletes were defined as those who actively participate in a varsity or club sport at MHC • Debriefed participants

7. Results • Hypothesis: participants’ would rate themselves as more masculine after boxing, while those who engaged in ballet would rate themselves as more feminine. Additionally, athletes would rate themselves as more androgynous than non-athletes. • Our dependant variable was sex role, measured by the Bem Sex Role Inventory. • We preformed a 2 X 3 ANOVA

9. Results Continued • There were no significant main effects for physical activity or athletic participation • There was no significant interaction

10. Discussion • We failed to reject the null hypothesis • These results were not consistent with past research • Absolute Value Shows a trend (p=0.62) in athlete/ non-athlete androgyny

11. Problems • High standard deviation • More time to learn skills • Operation Definition: Athlete/non-athlete