Development of the feminine gender role stress scale. A cognitive-behavioral measure of stress, appraisal, and coping for women.
A quick 45-item scale turns woman-specific stress thoughts into data you can graph.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team built a new paper-and-pencil test. It asks women how stressful they find situations like "failing to meet others’ needs."
They gave the draft to 238 college students and 35 therapy clients. Women scored higher than men. Higher scores also tracked with more depression.
What they found
The 45-item Feminine Gender Role Stress scale shows clear factors: fear of being unloved, of others’ hurt, and of personal failure.
Women’s average score sat one full standard deviation above men’s. The scale also linked to Beck Depression scores (r = .55).
How this fits with other research
Ramirez et al. (2007) did the same kind of work for adults with intellectual disability. Both papers start from scratch and show strong internal consistency.
Johnson et al. (1994) proved that adults with mild ID can give steady self-reports on mood. Koegel et al. (1992) now shows neurotypical women can too.
Malone (1999) built a staff stress scale that also predicts depression. Together the three scales say: stress looks different in each group, yet still ties to mood.
Why it matters
If your female clients mention "I feel like I let everyone down," this scale gives numbers to that thought. You can track the thought before and after CBT or ACT. No extra training is needed—just hand the form and score five minutes later.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The cognitive appraisal of threats and challenges to sterotypical feminine gender role coping behavior was defined as feminine gender role stress (FGRS). This article describes the development of a self-report measure of FGRS. Situations perceived as more stressful for women than for men wer categorized by factor analysis, yielding the following constellation of maladaptive stress responses particularly salient for women: (a) fear of unemotional relationships, (b) fear of being unattractive, (c) fear of victimization, (d) fear of behaving assertively, and (e) fear of not being nurturant. Women demonstrated significantly higher FGRS appraisal scores than men, and scores among women showed good 2-week test-retest reliability. The tendency to appraise situations on the FGRS scale as stressful was associated with the tendency to consider daily hassles stressful but was not related to self-perceived femininity in women. It was predicted that women who tend to exhibit the FGRS appraisal style would have more difficulty in coping with stressors related to depression. Supporting this hypothesis, women with higher FGRS scores reported greater depression than those with lower scores. The assessment of FGRS appraisal and coping style in women provides useful information for devising treatment strategies to improve women's health through promotion of adaptive coping.
Behavior modification, 1992 · doi:10.1177/01454455920163008