Gender Role and Relationship Norm

Abstract

The Gender Role and Relationship Norms Scale (GRRN) is a multidimensional psychometric instrument developed by Abigail Harrison, Luciana O’Sullivan, Susie Hoffman, Cheryl Dolezal, and Robert Morrell in 2006. Engineered specifically to interrogate the social etiology of HIV/AIDS transmission and intimate partner violence (IPV) among young adults, the GRRN operationalizes the complex, culturally situated interpersonal dynamics and gendered power structures prevalent in transitioning socio-political contexts, most notably post-apartheid South Africa. Comprising distinct yet intercorrelated subscales, the instrument assesses key dimensions including: Violence in Sexual Relationships (with parallel dyadic forms capturing female victimization and male perpetration/endorsement), Relationship Power and Decision-Making, Egalitarian Sex Roles (Sexual Scripts), Male Dominant Sex Roles, Meaning in Relationships (Mutuality), and Hyper-Romanticism.

The scale employs a standardized Likert-type response format, typically structured across four response options ranging from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 4 (“Strongly Agree”), designed to minimize neutral response bias among adolescent and emerging adult populations. Psychometric evaluations demonstrate moderate to high internal consistency across subscales, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from α = 0.62 to α = 0.84 depending on gender stratification and subscale focus. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses validate its distinct multidimensional structure, establishing divergent validity between structural power inequities, behavioral coercion, and affective attachment styles. By quantifying hegemonic masculine norms, relational fatalism, and sexual script rigidity, the GRRN serves as a foundational assessment tool across social epidemiology, cross-cultural psychometrics, gender studies, and global public health intervention design.

Keywords

Gender Role and Relationship Norms Scale, GRRN, intimate partner violence, gender equity, sexual scripts, hegemonic masculinity, HIV risk behaviors, relationship power dynamics, psychometrics, adolescent sexual health, South Africa, mutuality, hyper-romanticism.

Authors

The Gender Role and Relationship Norms Scale was formulated and psychometrically evaluated through an international interdisciplinary collaboration between behavioral scientists, epidemiologists, and sociologists:

• Abigail Harrison, Ph.D., MPH: Associate Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the School of Public Health, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Her research focuses on adolescent sexual and reproductive health, HIV prevention, gender dynamics, and longitudinal transitions to adulthood in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Luciana O’Sullivan, Ph.D.: Professor of Psychology and Canada Research Chair in Adolescents’ Sexual Health Behavior at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada. Her expertise centers on adolescent and young adult romantic relationship development, sexual communication, and sexual well-being.
• Susie Hoffman, DrPH: Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, and Research Scientist at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, USA.
• Cheryl Dolezal, M.S.: Senior Biostatistician and Research Scientist at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University, New York, USA, specializing in complex psychometric modeling and longitudinal data analysis in behavioral health.
• Robert Morrell, Ph.D.: Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Next Generation Professoriate at the University of Cape Town and the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. A pioneering scholar in Southern African gender studies, his seminal work investigates the historical, structural, and cultural constructions of masculinities and gender inequalities.

Purpose

The primary clinical, epidemiological, and psychometric objective of the Gender Role and Relationship Norms Scale is to quantitatively capture the socio-normative architecture that mediates intimate partner violence, sexual risk-taking, and reproductive health outcomes among adolescents and young adults. Historically, individual-level health behavior frameworks—such as the Health Belief Model or the Theory of Planned Behavior—predicated sexual risk prevention on rational decision-making, autonomous cognitive appraisals, and self-efficacy. However, these paradigms frequently failed to predict or mitigate the trajectory of the HIV epidemic in regions marked by acute structural gender disparity, such as Southern Africa.

Harrison and colleagues developed the GRRN to bridge this critical theoretical and empirical gap. The scale evaluates how societal gender role expectations are internalized into interpersonal relationship norms, creating relational dynamics where individuals—predominantly young women—experience impaired sexual agency, constrained negotiation capacity regarding condom use, and exposure to physical and coercive sexual violence. Concurrently, the scale delineates how masculine norms equate male status with partner control, emotional detachment, sexual entitlement, and multiple concurrent partnerships.

In research contexts, the GRRN enables investigators to analyze how normative endorsements of male dominance and romantic fatalism prospectively predict high-risk behaviors, including inconsistent barrier contraception, transactional sex, and partner concurrency. In clinical and translational settings, the instrument provides evaluative metrics for structural gender-transformative interventions (such as community-level mobilization trials, school-based relationship curricula, and couples-based counseling programs). By establishing granular baseline and post-intervention profiles across its specialized subscales, the GRRN isolates the precise cognitive and normative schemas that change in response to empowerment, violence prevention, and HIV education initiatives.

Psychological Construct

The construct assessed by the GRRN is multidimensional, reflecting the dialectical intersection between macro-level societal expectations and micro-level dyadic negotiations. Rather than treating gender roles as static personality traits (as operationalized by legacy tools such as the Bem Sex-Role Inventory), the GRRN conceptualizes gender roles as dynamic, relational scripts that govern power allocation, emotional expression, and physical boundaries within intimate partnerships. The instrument disaggregates this overarching construct into several discrete, theoretically coherent sub-dimensions:

1. Violence in Sexual Relationships

This dimension operationalizes the normalization, expectation, and execution of physical coercion and control within intimate unions. Uniquely formatted with gender-specific adaptations, it assesses both female experiences of victimization (e.g., threats of violence for perceived non-compliance, forced sexual intercourse, and physical battery) and male self-reported perpetration or behavioral entitlement. Crucially, the items capture violence not merely as isolated behavioral infractions, but as disciplinary mechanisms deployed to enforce territoriality, control partner mobility, and punish suspected infidelity.

2. Relationship Power and Decision-Making

This construct captures relational balance, autonomy, and shared governance. It examines the democratic distribution of voice and authority within the romantic dyad, measuring whether decision-making regarding mutual activities, social mobility, and systemic relationship milestones is unilateral or shared. High scores on this dimension signify egalitarian power structures, mutual respect, and validation of women’s societal and interpersonal rights.

3. Egalitarian Sex Roles and Sexual Scripts

Derived from sexual script theory, this dimension measures the democratization of sexual communication and desire. It gauges the degree to which both partners possess equal authority to initiate or decline sexual activity, openly express preferences, and articulate sexual boundaries without fear of retribution. This construct stands in direct opposition to traditional scripts that frame female sexual desire as passive, reactive, or illicit.

4. Male Dominant Sex Roles

This dimension assesses endorsement of traditional, patriarchal, and double-standard sexual scripts. It operationalizes beliefs that male infidelity and partner multiplicity are biologically or culturally inevitable (“men cannot live with just one girlfriend”), alongside scripts that stigmatize female sexual agency (“only a bad girl shows that she likes sex a lot”). Furthermore, it measures relational double standards that outsource the cognitive burden of disease prevention exclusively to women (e.g., viewing condom negotiation as solely the female partner’s duty) while simultaneously delegitimizing female sexual refusal (“if a woman refuses sex she usually doesn’t mean it”).

5. Meaning in Relationships: Mutuality

Mutuality assesses emotional connection, interdependence, shared vulnerability, and reciprocal caretaking. This subscale measures the health of the emotional bond, assessing whether the partnership is characterized by open problem-solving, collaborative future planning, deep affection, and mutual respect, which serve as protective psychological buffers against relational toxicity and neglect.

6. Hyper-Romanticism

Hyper-Romanticism captures an exaggerated, dependent, and often maladaptive idealization of romantic love. It reflects relational fatalism, existential reliance on partner validation (“if I did not have a partner at all, I would not feel like a real person”), and extreme dependency (“I cannot live without my partner for even 1 day”). Psychometrically, hyper-romanticism often co-occurs with elevated vulnerability to intimate partner violence, as individuals with high romantic fatalism may endure abuse or bypass safer-sex protocols to preserve the romantic bond at all costs.

Theoretical Framework

The architecture of the Gender Role and Relationship Norms Scale is grounded in three major sociological and psychological frameworks: Connell’s Theory of Gender and Power, Gagnon and Simon’s Sexual Script Theory, and Social Norms Theory.

The Theory of Gender and Power (R.W. Connell)

Robert W. Connell’s structural sociological framework posits that gender relations are organized through three distinct, overlapping structures: the sexual division of labor, the sexual division of power, and the structure of cathexis (affective and emotional attachments). The GRRN integrates this framework to evaluate systemic inequalities within interpersonal dyads:

• The Division of Power: Connell establishes that patriarchal societies institutionalize hegemonic masculinity, defining manhood through dominance, physical authority, emotional invulnerability, and authority over women. The GRRN’s subscales on Violence and Relationship Power operationalize this dynamic by measuring the extent to which authority is concentrated in the male partner and enforced through physical intimidation or behavioral coercion.
• The Structure of Cathexis: Cathexis governs emotional desires, sexual attraction, and relational attachments. Connell notes that affective ties can reinforce subordination. The GRRN operationalizes this through its Hyper-Romanticism and Mutuality subscales, illustrating how emotional dependency can bind an individual to an unequal or hazardous relationship, transforming emotional longing into vulnerability.

Sexual Script Theory (Gagnon & Simon)

According to John Gagnon and William Simon, human sexual behavior is not purely instinctual or biological; rather, it is guided by metaphorical “scripts” operating at three levels: cultural scenarios (instructional societal narratives), interpersonal scripts (contextual adaptations during dyadic interaction), and intrapsychic scripts (internal desires and individual self-talk). The GRRN measures the degree to which culturally scripted double standards—such as beliefs that women who initiate sex are immoral or that a woman’s sexual refusal is insincere—shape interpersonal sexual encounters. The instrument captures the cognitive schemas that dictate who possesses the scriptural authority to propose barrier protection, express erotic interest, or terminate a sexual event.

Social Norms and Syndemics Theory

Finally, the scale incorporates social norms theory, distinguishing between descriptive norms (what peers actually do) and injunctive norms (what behaviors are socially approved or sanctioned within a reference community). In contexts marked by the intersecting crises of poverty, structural unemployment, and high disease burden—a dynamic conceptualized by Merrill Singer as a syndemic—traditional masculine identity often becomes hyper-focused on sexual conquest and the policing of female fidelity as compensation for structural disenfranchisement. The GRRN captures these socially sanctioned scripts to assess their predictive power regarding health vulnerabilities.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the GRRN has been systematically evaluated through empirical field studies, primarily among young adults and late adolescents in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa and subsequent international research cohorts.

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity was established through extensive qualitative formative research, including focus group discussions and in-depth cognitive interviews with young men and women. These investigations ensured that scale items possessed high ecological and cultural validity. Subsequent structural modeling demonstrated that the six conceptual domains represent related yet statistically distinct dimensions of relationship norms rather than a monolithic global construct.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity is robustly supported through significant associations with established behavioral and psychological indices:

• Intimate Partner Violence: Endorsement of the Male Dominant Sex Roles subscale correlates positively with self-reported perpetration of physical and emotional abuse among men (r = .38 to .46, p < .001) and with lifetime experiences of physical and sexual victimization among women (r = .34, p < .01).
• Gender-Equitable Men (GEM) Scale: The GRRN’s Power and Egalitarian Sex Roles subscales exhibit strong positive correlations with the GEM scale (r = .52 to .61, p < .001), corroborating the instrument’s sensitivity to gender-equitable cognitive frameworks.
• Condom Negotiation Self-Efficacy: Higher scores on Egalitarian Sex Roles correlate significantly with elevated Condom Use Self-Efficacy scores among young women (r = .41, p < .001).

Predictive and Criterion Validity

Predictive validity has been demonstrated longitudinally and cross-sectionally against biological and behavioral criteria. Scores on the Male Dominant Sex Roles and Violence in Sexual Relationships subscales predict:

• Lower odds of consistent condom use during the preceding three months (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR] = 0.68, 95% CI [0.52, 0.89]).
• Elevated rates of partner concurrency among men (AOR = 1.74, 95% CI [1.21, 2.50]).
• Increased likelihood of experiencing non-consensual sexual intercourse among women.

Conversely, high scores on the Meaning in Relationships: Mutuality subscale prospectively predict joint testing for HIV, dyadic disclosure of serostatus, and higher rates of relationship stability without concurrent sexual partnerships.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity is evidenced by the distinct empirical pathways observed for Mutuality versus Hyper-Romanticism. While Mutuality correlates positively with mental well-being, relationship satisfaction, and protective health behaviors, Hyper-Romanticism shows negligible or negative correlations with effective sexual negotiation and, in some cohorts, correlates with sustained involvement in violent partnerships, demonstrating that the instrument successfully differentiates healthy emotional attachment from pathological relational dependence.

Reliability

The GRRN exhibits satisfactory to high internal consistency across multiple community and clinical cohorts. Psychometric evaluations across diverse samples of South African young adults (Harrison et al., 2006) demonstrate the following reliability parameters:

Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha)

• Violence in Sexual Relationships (Women’s Victimization Form): α = 0.78 to 0.83, reflecting strong item-total correlations across indicators of coerced sex, threat of violence, and physical abuse.
• Violence in Sexual Relationships (Men’s Perpetration Form): α = 0.74 to 0.81, indicating robust internal coherence among items measuring controlling behavior, anger-induced battery, and sexual coercion.
• Power and Decision-Making: α = 0.65 to 0.72. The slightly lower alpha in early administrations reflected cultural heterogeneity regarding political rights versus domestic decision-making authority.
• Egalitarian Sex Roles: α = 0.68 to 0.76 across mixed-gender samples.
• Male Dominant Sex Roles: α = 0.72 to 0.79, confirming reliable clustering of traditional patriarchal double standards and anti-egalitarian sexual scripts.
• Meaning in Relationships (Mutuality): α = 0.79 to 0.84, representing high item homogeneity in assessing shared planning, mutual respect, and reciprocal caretaking.
• Hyper-Romanticism: α = 0.70 to 0.76, demonstrating acceptable internal consistency for measuring relational fatalism and dependence.

Test-Retest Stability

In intervention control cohorts evaluated over 3-month and 6-month intervals in the absence of active gender-transformative programming, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) ranged from 0.71 to 0.82 across subscales. This demonstrates that baseline gender and relationship norms remain stable cognitive constructs over time unless challenged by targeted structural or behavioral interventions.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the GRRN was evaluated through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) during its initial validation and subsequent cross-cultural adaptations.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Initial principal axis factoring with promax (oblique) rotation was conducted to account for expected theoretical intercorrelations among gender norm dimensions. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measures of sampling adequacy consistently exceeded 0.82, and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was statistically significant (p < .0001), indicating data suitability for factor extraction.

Analysis of eigenvalues (Kaiser’s criterion > 1.0) and examination of the scree plot converged on a robust multi-factor solution. Primary factor loadings ranged from 0.42 to 0.81 across items. For example:

• Items defining physical battery and mobility restriction (e.g., “My partner would beat me if I went somewhere without telling him”) demonstrated salient factor loadings (> 0.65) on the latent Violence dimension, with minimal cross-loading (< 0.20) onto emotional or power dimensions.
• Items assessing sexual initiation and negotiation (e.g., “A girlfriend should tell her boyfriend what she likes and doesn’t like”) loaded strongly (> 0.58) onto the Egalitarian Sex Roles factor.
• Items expressing relational fatalism (e.g., “If I did not have a partner at all, I would not feel like a real person”) loaded cleanly onto the Hyper-Romanticism construct (> 0.62).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent Confirmatory Factor Analyses evaluating the multidimensional model have demonstrated acceptable to excellent goodness-of-fit indices across young adult populations in sub-Saharan Africa and other international cohorts:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values typically range from 0.92 to 0.95, exceeding the standard > 0.90 benchmark for acceptable model fit.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Values consistently range between 0.90 and 0.94.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Estimates range from 0.041 to 0.056 (with 90% confidence intervals within acceptable bounds < 0.08), denoting close approximate model fit.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Values remain below 0.06.

Multigroup invariance testing has substantiated metric and scalar invariance across biological sex subgroups, confirming that the GRRN measures equivalent latent constructs in both male and female respondents, thereby permitting valid cross-gender comparisons and dyadic analyses.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Gender Role and Relationship Norms Scale (GRRN).
• Target Population: Adolescents (ages 14–19) and young adults (ages 20–24+), adaptable for older adult cohorts and relational dyads.
• Administration Type: Self-administered (paper-and-pencil or computerized/CASI format) or administered via trained, gender-matched interviewers in low-literacy settings.
• Estimated Completion Time: 15 to 25 minutes for the full battery.
• Response Format: 4-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Agree, 4 = Strongly Agree). Certain subscales may utilize adapted frequency scales (e.g., Never, Sometimes, Fairly Often, Always) when behavioral frequency rather than normative endorsement is evaluated.
• Core Dimensions / Subscales:
  • Violence in Sexual Relationships (Women’s Form / Men’s Form)
  • Power and Decision-Making
  • Egalitarian Sex Roles (Sexual Scripts)
  • Male Dominant Sex Roles
  • Meaning in Relationships: Mutuality
  • Hyper-Romanticism
• Scoring Procedures:
  • Subscale scores are calculated by averaging or summing item responses within each subscale after reverse-scoring negatively keyed items (e.g., power-equality items scored inversely when computing patriarchal indices).
  • Higher scores on the Violence and Male Dominant Sex Roles subscales indicate greater endorsement of patriarchal authority, coercive control, and gender inequity.
  • Higher scores on the Power and Egalitarian Sex Roles subscales indicate greater commitment to gender equity and democratic dyadic communication.
  • Higher scores on Mutuality reflect supportive affective intimacy, whereas elevated scores on Hyper-Romanticism reflect relational dependence and fatalism.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Gender Role and Relationship Norms Scale was formally published in 2006 under the title Gender Role and Relationship Norms among Young Adults in South Africa: Measuring the Context of Masculinity and HIV Risk in the Journal of Urban Health (Harrison et al., 2006). Development of the instrument was supported through research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Fogarty International Center.

The instrument is in the public domain and is accessible free of charge for non-commercial academic, research, and epidemiological program evaluation purposes. The complete measurement tool is published openly via PubMed Central (PMC2430491) and is cataloged in the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) compendium, Measures for the Assessment of Dimensions of Violence Against Women (compiled by Dr. Michael Flood, pp. 13–15). Researchers wishing to adapt, translate, or incorporate the GRRN into empirical protocols are required to provide appropriate formal scholarly attribution to Harrison et al. (2006). No licensing fees or royalty payments are required for scientific deployment.

References

Connell, R. W. (1987). Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. Stanford University Press.

Flood, M. (Comp.). (2008). Measures for the assessment of dimensions of violence against women: A compendium. Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI). http://www.svri.org/measures.pdf

Gagnon, J. H., & Simon, W. (1973). Sexual conduct: The social sources of human sexuality. Aldine Publishing Company.

Harrison, A., O’Sullivan, L., Hoffman, S., Dolezal, C., & Morrell, R. (2006). Gender role and relationship norms among young adults in South Africa: Measuring the context of masculinity and HIV risk. Journal of Urban Health, 83(4), 709–722. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-006-9080-3

Jewkes, R., Nduna, M., Levin, J., Jama, N., Dunkle, K., Khuzwayo, N., Koss, M., Puren, A., & Duvvury, N. (2006). A cluster randomized-controlled trial to determine the effectiveness of Stepping Stones of relevance to the prevention of HIV and HSV-2 and intimate partner violence in young people in South Africa. Trials, 7, Article 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/1745-6215-7-35

Morrell, R., Jewkes, R., & Lindegger, G. (2012). Hegemonic masculinity/masculinities in South Africa: Culture, power, and gender politics. Men and Masculinities, 15(1), 11–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X12438001

O’Sullivan, L. F., Harrison, A., Morrell, R., Hoffman, S., & Dolezal, C. (2006). Gender, relationship power, and unprotected sex among young urban South Africans. Health Psychology, 25(2), 246–252. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.25.2.246

Pulerwitz, J., & Barker, G. (2008). Measuring attitudes toward gender norms among young men in Brazil: Development and psychometric evaluation of the GEM Scale. Men and Masculinities, 10(3), 322–338. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X06298778

Items of the Scale