Cross-Cultural Validity of the Masculine and Feminine Gender Role Stress Scales

Abstract

The objective was to examine the usefulness of Dutch versions of the Masculine Gender Role Stress (MGRS; Eisler & Skidmore, 1987) Scale and the Feminine Gender Role Stress (Gillespie & Eisler, 1992) Scale in The Netherlands. Undergraduate students (N = 2,239) completed both gender role stress scales. A subgroup (n = 508) also completed questionnaires about masculinity-femininity and daily hassles. With regard to both gender role stress scales, results of confirmatory factor analyses supported the original 5-factor structures and revealed no cross-sex differences on the factor models. Reliability and homogeneity indexes were all well within acceptable to satisfactory limits. Further evidence of construct validity was found in (a) medium to large correlations with daily hassles, (b) sex differences on the FGRS scale, and (c) small to medium correlations with masculinity-femininity. The major discrepancy with previous studies was that for Dutch female and male students, the MGRS scale was not sex specific. Taken together, this study sustained the utility of both gender role stress scales for use in The Netherlands.

Cardiovascular responses across stressor phases: The match of gender and gender-role identification with the gender relevance of the stressor

“…Preferably, participants are randomly assigned to conditions by genderrole identification. Moreover, as the strength of gender-role identification is less strong in Dutch participants as compared to participants in other countries [42], identification levels in our sample may not have differed enough to result in maximum possible effects. Therefore, extreme groups with regard to gender-role identification should be selected in future research.…”

“…The GRS was translated into Dutch according to back-translation rules [40,41]. This version was found highly reliable and cross-culturally valid [42]. Similar to the reviewed studies, gender-role identification was operationalized with median splits on the scores of the MGRS and FGRS scales (2.33 and 3.18, respectively).…”

Higher Levels of Masculine Gender Role Stress in Masculine than in Feminine Nations

“…However, the BSRI is not a measure of gender role-related stress. At the individual level, MGRS has been shown, in line with prediction, to be distinct from, that is, uncorrelated or only very lowly associated with, masculinity (Arrindell et al, 1993;Eisler & Skidmore, 1987;van Well, Kolk, & Arrindell, 2005). Moreover, at the country level, MAS has been demonstrated to be unrelated to the masculine gender role (Best & Williams, 1998).…”

Direct and Indirect Assessment of Gender Role Identification

“…The reliability and validity of both GRS scales have been found satisfactory (Eisler and Skidmore 1987;Eisler et al 1988;Gillespie and Eisler 1992). Furthermore, the Dutch version of the GRS scales was found to be highly reliable and cross-culturally valid (van Well et al 2005). In the current sample Cronbach's alpha was .92 and .94 for the MGRS and FGRS scale, respectively.…”