Excerpted from AIDSQuest: HIV/AIDS Survey Library, Horizons Program, 2008, Washington, DC: Population Council.
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Overview
The Male Role Attitudes Scale is an eight-item scale designed to determine how adolescent males' views of their masculinity impacts their heterosexual relationships. The scale is based on theoretical models of masculinity ideology. Items were chosen to represent three factorial dimensions: status (three items), toughness (two items), and anti-femininity (two items). An additional item about sexual behavior was also included. Six of the eight items focus exclusively on men in relation to male role standards, and two items directly or indirectly concern the intimate sexual relationship.
Methodology/validity
Seven of the scale’s eight items were adapted from Thompson and Pleck’s Male Role Norms Scale, which was in turn adapted from the 26-item Brannon Masculinity Scale (Brannon 1985, in Beyond Sex Roles, pp. 110–116). The Male Role Attitudes Scale was administered to a sub-sample (1,069) of sexually active males from the National Survey of Adolescent Males, a US sample that was stratified to over-represent African-American and Latino respondents.
For additional information on the psychometric properties of the Male Role Attitudes Scale, please see Pleck, Sonenstein, and Ku. 1993. “Masculinity ideology: Its impact on adolescent males' heterosexual relationships,” Journal of Social Issues 49(3): 11–29.
