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Psychological androgyny and ideational fluency
Author(s) -
Hargreaves David,
Stoll Louise,
Farnworth Shirley,
Morgan Sue
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1981.tb00473.x
Subject(s) - androgyny , psychology , femininity , masculinity , fluency , social psychology , developmental psychology , confounding , statistics , mathematics education , mathematics , psychoanalysis
The evidence for the hypothesis that psychological androgyny and creativity are positively related in one or both sexes was briefly reviewed, and the relationship was tested using multiple regression analysis in a sample of 147 9–11‐year‐old schoolchildren. This kind of analysis overcomes three major problems that previous researchers have faced in the assessment of androgyny: the loss of information that occurs when subjects are divided into groups on the basis of median splits, the possible confounding of ‘undifferentiated’ and ‘androgynous’ individuals, and the need to assume that masculinity and femininity are independent dimensions. Subjects' scores on the masculinity and femininity scales of a specially designed Play and Games Inventory were positively correlated for both sexes; it was found that neither of these variables considered separately accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in ideational fluency for either sex, but that the product variable (masculinity × femininity) did so for girls. This finding is interpreted as tentative support for our hypothesis, and suggestions are made for further research.