Sex-role ideology among practicing psychiatrists and psychiatric residents

Abstract

The authors distributed a sex-role ideology questionnaire to practicing psychiatrists, psychiatric residents, university students, and groups of traditional and feminist women. Psychiatrists and psychiatric residents as a group were significantly more feminist in their ideology than university students and the traditional women's group but were less feminist than a group of feminist women. There were no differences between practicing psychiatrists and psychiatric residents. Overall, women were more feminist than men and increasing age was found to be associated with increasingly traditional ideology. These findings challenge the view that psychiatrists as a group have traditional views that make them part of a traditional medical power structure.