Gender-Role Orientation, Creative Accomplishments and Cognitive Styles

✍ Scribed by JAMES B. HITTNER; JENNIFER R. DANIELS

• Publisher: Creative Education Foundation
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 100 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-0175
• DOI: 10.1002/j.2162-6057.2002.tb01056.x

✦ Synopsis

The present study examined the association of gender‐role orientation to creative accomplishments and cognitive styles. One hundred and twenty‐seven college students completed the Artistic and Scientific Activities Survey (Guastello, 1991), the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1974), and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974). Three different gender‐role orientations were examined: instrumentality (agenic, stereotypically masculine), expressiveness (communal, stereotypically feminine), and androgynous (high levels of instrumental and expressive characteristics). Results indicated that instrumentality was positively associated with creative accomplishments in the business venture domain and that androgynous, versus nonandrogynous, individuals were more creatively productive in the domains of literature, theater, and video‐photography. Instrumentality was also positively associated with the six hats cognitive style, which is a measure of cognitive flexibility, and the six hats style was marginally significantly associated with androgyny. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed and recommendations for future research are considered.