The nonverbal display of psychological androgyny.

Attempted to determine how individual differences in sex-role orientation, as assessed by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, were related to undergraduates' display of nonverbal behaviors indicative of "masculinity" and "femininity." Smiling, gazing (feminine behaviors), interrupting, and filled pausing (masculine behaviors) were coded for sex-typed males and females and androgynous males and females assigned to either an instrumental situation or an expressive situation in 36 same-sex dyads. Analyses of nonverbal behavior showed that androgynous Ss showed a blend of both masculine and feminine behaviors. The blend was the product of the addition of cross-sex behavior and deletion of some sex-consonant behavior. In contrast, sex-typed Ss showed more cross-sex behavioral avoidance and more sex-consonant behavioral cohesion. Results are discussed in terms of S. L. Bem's (1974, 1975) and J. T. Spence and R. L. Helmreich's (1977) conceptions of masculinity and femininity. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)