Androgyny and the career choices of allied health professions students.

Psychological androgyny (the presence of both masculine and feminine personality characteristics in the same individual) has been shown to be related to career sex-role stereotyping and to the selection of some allied health professions careers. The purpose of this study was to determine what the distribution of the four types of gender-related personality categories (androgynous, masculine, feminine, undifferentiated) was among allied health professions students and whether these personality categories were related to actual career choice. The study involved 338 students enrolled in all six allied health professions programs at Weber State College in Ogden, Utah, who completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI), a measure of psychological androgyny. Findings indicated that, in contrast to national normative data, the androgynous personality was the most frequently occurring personality category, followed closely by feminine-typed subjects. Female subjects were nearly equally divided between androgynous and feminine personalities; male subjects were predominantly masculine-typed individuals. In addition, the largest percentage of students enrolled in the nursing, respiratory therapy, radiologic technology, and medical technology programs were androgynous personalities; the dental hygiene and paramedic programs had, respectively, more feminine and more masculine students enrolled. These findings indicated that, although some professions were still sexually stereotyped in terms of students' personality characteristics, there may be an emerging trend toward androgyny in the allied health professions. Future research efforts might be directed toward replications of this study using allied health students at other educational institutions.