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

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 1 st 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

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

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.

Method 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

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

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

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

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

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