The relationship of sex role and levels of defensiveness to self-reports of fear and anxiety

Examined the conclusions of previous research that found that femine Ss perceive themselves as experiencing greater fear and anxiety than Ss with a masculine sex-role orientation. The current study hypothesizes that these results may be confounded by the amount of expressive defensiveness exhibited by Ss (N = 99), independent of their sex-role orientation. The results, however, indicated that feminine Ss perceived themselves as experiencing greater fear than either androgynous or masculine Ss, regardless of their level of defensiveness. Contrary to previous research, there were no significant effects of either sex-role orientation or level of defensiveness on self-reported anxiety.