Are Androgynous Individuals More Effective Persons and Parents?

BAUMRIND, DIANA. Are Androgynous Individuals More Effective Persons and Parents? CmHLD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 44-75. It has been asserted that androgynes of both sexes are more competent and flexible persons and that they are more likely to be the kind of parents Baumrind describes as Authoritative. Like the children of Authoritative parents, the children of androgynes are predicted to be assertive, socially responsible, and highly competent. Using extensive, multifaceted observational and interview data from the Family Socialization and Developmental Competence Project, it was possible to test these hypotheses with 9-year-old girls and boys and their parents. First it was established that the fourfold sex-role classification derived from the Bem Sex-Role Inventory does have predictive power beyond that of biological sex. The behavioral consequences associated with gender-identity assignment were subsequently examined. Androgynous women do not differ importantly from other women. Androgynous men, however, are more like Androgynous women than like Masculine men in their child-rearing practices. In addition, they are unconventional and autonomous in their personal lives. In accordance with their professed values, sex-typed mothers are responsive, and sex-typed fathers are firm. Androgynes are not more likely to be authoritative parents, but instead are child centered in their approach. Children of sex-typed parents are somewhat more competent than children of androgynous parents. Since cogent behavioral data have not been accumulated to support their claims, it is concluded that androgyny researchers should refrain from promoting the androgyne as the new American ideal.