Abstract
At the 1973 National Association of School Psychologists' Convention (NASP) in New York City, a national sample of 120 school psychologists (61 female, 59 male), were asked to participate in a survey measuring a wide spectrum of their attitudes. The Chasen Diagnostic Sex-Role Bias scale, consisting of eight equated “somewhat unhealthy” case histories of active and passive girls and boys, developed and validated for this study, was administered with the Trachtman Authoritarianism Scale, and the Hymer Sex-Role Attitude Scale. For the total group, authoritarianism and sex-role attitudes are not related to Diagnostic Sex-Role Bias, yet males with traditional sex-role attitudes exhibit Diagnostic Sex-Role Bias and males with untraditional sex-role attitudes exhibit counterstereotypic Diagnostic Sex-Role Bias. The sex of the school psychologist is related to Diagnostic Sex-Role Bias; that is, male school psychologists do not exhibit Diagnostic Sex-Role Bias, while female school psychologists exhibit counterstereotypic Diagnostic Sex-Role Bias. Females are most accepting of active girls, which may be considered a compensatory diagnostic mechanism to counteract stereotyping.
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Based on a doctoral dissertation completed at New York University, 1974. I am deeply grateful to the members of my thesis committee, each of whom made unique contributions to the development of the thesis: Dr. Iris G. Fodor, Chairperson, Dr. Sharon L. Weinberg, and Dr. Gilbert M. Trachtman. I also thank the following people for their support and assistance: the members of the Feminist Research Group, especially Bobbi Selcer and Betty Levy; my colleagues at the Bureau of Child Guidance; the participants, and the NASP Convention staff (Theodore Bernstein, Burt Weissburger, and Evelyn Goldwasser) who made a suite available for this study; Bert Holland, Marty Schulman, Laura Berke, Sandy Pak, Peter Wolf, Betsy Phipard, Helen Silverman, Ellen Israel, Ruth Mayer, Elana Unterman, Judy Kupersmith, Phyllis Chesler, Jeannette Vosk, Philip, Lia, and Ethel Chasen.
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Chasen, B. Diagnostic Sex-Role Bias and its relation to authoritarianism, Sex-Role Attitudes, and sex of the school psychologist. Sex Roles 1, 355–368 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287226
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287226