Masculinity Ideology: Establishing Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Masculinity ideology is the extent to which an individual endorses traditional male-role norms. The present study examined the discriminant and convergent validity of this construct relative to other gender-role constructs. Two-hundred sixty-nine male participants completed a questionnaire containing measures of masculinity ideology, gender-role conflict, sex-role orientation, and gender-relation attitudes. Participants also completed measures of constructs known to correlate with masculinity ideology. support for discriminant validity was indicated by masculinity ideology accounting for variance in outcome measures that was unaccounted for by sex-role orientation or gender-relation attitudes. In particular, masculinity ideology was uniquely predictive of homophobia, hostility, an adversarial view of sexual relationships, and the frequency of sexual activity. Masculinity ideology also demonstrated convergent validity by correlating highly with gender-role conflict and by having a similar pattern of correlations with the outcome variables. Implications for the relationships among gender-role constructs are discussed.