The Effects of Same-Sex and Other-Sex Contexts on Masculinity and Femininity

The study addressed whether or not masculinity and femininity as indexed by state measures of gender-typed behaviors changed when participants worked with asame-sex or other-sex peer. In a within-subjects design, 80 college students (40 women and 40 men, M age = 19.5 years, SD = 2.10) worked with a man and a woman confederate on a collaborative task. State masculinity and femininity measures were created from existing trait measures (Bem, 1974; Boldizar, 1991). Men and women reported greater state femininity when working with an other-sex partner than when working with a same-sex partner. State masculinity did not vary as a function of same-sex and other-sex contexts. Implications of these findings for understanding how social interactions contribute to the construction of masculinity and femininity are discussed.