Masculinity, femininity, academic performance, and health: Further evidence concerning the androgyny controversy1

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Abstract
Spence and Helmreich''s claim that individual differences in 4 components of achievement motivation (mastery, work, competitiveness and personal unconcern) are attributable to masculinity and femininity rather than to gender was generally supported, with 1 exception: Masculinity was associated with competitiveness for males but not for females. Competitive women were more likely than noncompetitive women to have mental and physical health problems, but there was no such difference for males. Masculinity emerged as a beneficial constellation of traits for males and females, correlating negatively with achievement conflicts and stress symptoms and positively with mastery and work. Femininity appeared to be a detrimetal cluster of traits for both sexes, at least in terms of academic performance and health. Implications for the controversial concept of androgyny were discussed and it was suggested that, in the future, research inspired by an ideal conception of adult behavior confront the ideal directly rather than describe it in terms of the traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity. Any such research effort will have to deal with the pivotal role of competitiveness.

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