His and Her Individualisms? Sex Bias and Individualism in Psychologists' Responses to Case Vignettes

Abstract

Individualism and sexism have been identified as important and problematic biases in psychotherapy. The extent to which psychologists use individualist values differentially in their responses to clinical case vignettes describing men and women was examined. Two samples of practicing psychologists (N = 229) responded to 14 clinical vignettes by choosing initial hypotheses about the client that reflected either a utilitarian, instrumental (traditionally masculine) perspective or expressive (traditionally feminine) themes. Two sex-of-client manipulations were conducted, one of which resulted in a sex-of-client effect. A loglinear logit analysis of repeated measures conducted with the non-manipulated vignettes indicated a marked preference for the utilitarian form of individualism for males in response to their clinical difficulties, whereas the responses for female clients were more balanced on the utilitarian and expressive alternatives. There was little evidence of a sex-of-respondent effect.