ORIGINAL ARTICLE Healthy Women, Healthy Men, and Healthy Adults: An Evaluation of Gender Role Stereotypes in the Twenty-first Century Susan Rachael Seem & M. Diane Clark Published online: 8 November 2006 # Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006 Abstract An important question often asked when coun- selors-in-training read textbook discussion of gender role stereotypes, especially of older work such as the classic study by the Brovermans and their colleagues, is ���Haven���t these biases been eliminated or at least reduced?��� The current study was designed to replicate the work of the Brovermans and their colleagues to answer that specific question and to determine how current counselors-in- training perceive healthy adult women, healthy adult men, and healthy adults. As in the prior research, initial ratings of the social desirability of traditional gender role stereotypes were conducted, and the findings showed many similarities to past research. That investigation was followed by a modified Stereotype Questionnaire, based on the original work of Rosenkrantz, Vogel, Bee, I. Broverman, and D. M. Broverman (1968). Healthy adult women were found to be significantly different from healthy adult men as well as from healthy adults. In addition, the results suggest that there have been changes in counselors��� perceptions of healthy adults. Counselors-in-training were found to hold two standards for mental health���one for women and another for men. Keywords Gender roles . Stereotypes . Counselors-in-training Relationships among self-concept, psychological health, and gender stereotypes emerged in the work of Rosenkrantz, Vogel, Bee, I. Broverman, & D. M. Broverman, (1968). In order to examine these relationships, Rosenkrantz et al. investigated first the social desirability of traits used to describe men and women and then developed the Stereo- type Questionnaire. The initial listing of socially desirable items was completed by having two classes of undergrad- uate students write down the characteristics that they believed differentiated men and women. Any item listed more than once was included in the Stereotype Questionnaire, which consisted of 122 items that were arranged along a Likert scale in a bipolar format (e.g., ���not at all aggressive���������very aggressive���). An interesting component of this 7-point Likert scale is that there were ten potential points between each of the Likert anchor-numbers for a total of 60 possible points. Rosenkrantz et al. then tested the Stereotype Questionnaire with a second independent sample of undergraduates to determine which pole of each of the 122 bipolar items represented the socially desirable one. The second study of Rosenkrantz et al. (1968) focused on determining the gender role stereotypes for men and for women and comparing those stereotypes to the ideal of a healthy adult. Their procedure asked all participants to ���imagine that you are going to meet a person for the first time and the only thing you know in advance is that this person is an adult (man)��� (p. 288)/adult woman. Awithin group design was used and participants were asked to rate each of the items to the extent that it characterized: (a) a healthy adult man, (b) a healthy adult woman, and (c) themselves (given the assump- tion that the later rating would represent a healthy adult, sex unspecified). Presentation of the healthy adult man and healthy adult woman instructions was counterbalanced and was always followed by the rating of a healthy adult. The ratings were used to determine which traits represented gender Sex Roles (2006) 55:247���258 DOI 10.1007/s11199-006-9077-0 S. R. Seem (*) Department of Counselor Education, State University of New York College at Brockport, 350 New Campus Drive, Brockport, NY 14420, USA e-mail: sseem@brockport.edu M. D. Clark Gallaudet University, Washington, DC, USA

role stereotypes by comparing the characteristics for a healthy adult man and for a healthy adult women to the characteristics for a healthy adult. Results indicated that college students, regardless of sex, agreed on the gender role stereotypes of men and women. They additionally concluded that the self-concepts of male and female participants followed these traditional gender role stereotypes meaning that women ���presumably,... also hold negative values of their worth relative to men��� (p. 293). Finally, they found a larger number of socially desirable characteristics and behaviors were stereotypically connected with masculinity than with femininity. In an extension of the study of Rosenkrantz et al. (1968), Broverman and colleagues, (I. K. Broverman, D. M. Broverman, Clarkson, Rosenkrantz, & Vogel, 1970 I. K. Broverman, Vogel, D. M. Broverman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972) investigated female and male clinicians��� (i.e., psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers) judg- ments of the mental health of women and men. As in the earlier work of Rosenkrantz et al., the Stereotype Question- naire was used, but this time with a between groups design. In their description of the instrument, Broverman et al. (1970) reported use of the questionnaire of Rosenkrantz et al. with 122 bipolar items. Their example in the 1970 article, however, did not include a Likert scale instead it was posed as a forced choice format (���not at all aggressive���������aggressive���). Broverman et al. (1970) hypothesized that (a) clinical judgments of the characteristics of a healthy, mature individual would differ as a function of the sex of the person judged and that (b) behavioral characteristics that were regarded as healthy for an adult, sex unspecified, would be more often regarded as healthy for men than for women (i.e., following cultural stereotypes of gender differences). Two types of scores were calculated: health scores and agreement scores. The health scores were based upon the assumption that traits selected for healthy adults would reflect the definition of mental health for all individuals. These health scores were determined by the pole selected by 75% or more of the participants who were given the healthy adult instructions for each of the 122 items. The masculinity agreement score was based on the percentage of participants who selected the socially desirable pole with the healthy adult man instructions and the femininity agreement score was based on the percentage who selected the socially desirable pole with the healthy adult woman instructions. The results of Broverman et al. (1970) paralleled the findings of Rosenkrantz et al. (1968) and showed that clinicians��� judgments of adult men���s mental health did not differ significantly from their judgments of healthy adults, sex unspecified, whereas their judgments of adult women���s mental health did differ significantly from judgments of healthy adult men and healthy adults sex unspecified. This determination was based upon the large overlap among health scores and masculinity agreement scores in contrast to the limited overlap among health scores and femininity agreement scores. These differences corresponded with cultural stereotypes of men and women that were widely held during that time. Healthy adult women were described as different from both healthy adult men and healthy adults in that they were more ���submissive,��� ���less independent,��� ���less aggressive,��� ���less competitive,��� ���more easily influenced,��� ���more emotional,��� and ���less objective.��� The authors conclud- ed that a double standard of mental health existed for women, in that for a woman to be seen as mentally healthy she must be feminine and not adult-like (i.e., not like a man). Both female and male clinicians implicitly supported this standard. Furthermore, the authors discovered that clinicians when given instructions to ���describe healthy, socially competent women��� (p. 2) used fewer traits than when they were given instructions to��� describe healthy, socially competent men��� (p. 2). The traits found for healthy women were often viewed as less socially desirable than the traits listed for healthy men. In an attempt to evaluate any changes in mental health professionals��� gender role stereotypes and clinical judg- ments, Phillips and Gilroy (1985) used a shortened version of the Likert scale Stereotype Questionnaire created by Rosenkrantz et al. (1968) in a between groups design. As in the Broverman et al. (1970) study, the participants were psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists. Similar to Broverman et al., they found no significant differences in ratings of health for adult men, adult women, and adults, sex unspecified, that were related to the clinician���s sex. In contrast to the results of Broverman et al., Philips and Gilroy found high levels of overlap when they compared the health scores to both the masculinity agreement scores and the femininity agreement scores. Philips and Gilroy challenged the conclusion of Broverman et al. regarding a double standard of mental health, and argued that the conclusion of Broverman et al. was based on a statistical artifact related to their use of a forced choice format. Furthermore, Philips and Gilroy found no significant relationship of the social desirability of traits and traditional gender role stereotypes, and they postulated that most traits were viewed as socially desirable for both sexes. Phillips and Gilroy concluded that either the Broverman et al. results were due to this statistical artifact or that their own results were due to the fact that progress had been made by clinicians in the reduction of their gender role stereotyping in clinical judgments. In another replication of Broverman et al. (1970), Widiger and Settle (1987) addressed methodological con- cerns in the classic design by focusing on the imbalanced ratio of traditionally masculine valued to traditionally feminine valued items as well as the use of bipolar adjectives. Widiger and Settle argued that feminine traits are not the opposite of masculine traits they found that if 248 Sex Roles (2006) 55:247���258