CONCURRENT VALIDITY OF THE MMPI-2 FEMININE GENDER-ROLE (GF) AND MASCULINE GENDER-ROLE (GM) SCALES

Since the development of the revised Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2; Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellege, & Kaemmer, 19 89), no independent studies have been conducted to validate the new GF and GM scales, the only published study being based on the original s tandardization sample. To determine the concurrent validity of these s cales, our study correlated GF and GM with scores obtained from the Be m Sex-Role Inventory, the Sex Role Behavior Scale, and the Sex Role Id entity Scale. Because the sex-role literature has suggested numerous p ersonality correlates of masculinity and femininity, the 16-PF was inc luded to assess this dimension of the new scales, as well as measures of social desirability. Results revealed the GF and GM scales to have low internal consistency and low concurrent validity with established sex-role measures. Relative to construct validity, their patterns of c orrelation with personality measures suggest that GF and GM are more r elated to personality traits of interpersonal potency and sensitivity, respectively, than to masculinity and femininity. Overall, although t he data yielded by these new scales provide additional information ove r Scale 5, they do not appear to hold as much promise as hoped for.