The Masculine Behavior Scale (MBS)

Abstract

The Masculine Behavior Scale (MBS) is a 20-item multidimensional self-report psychometric instrument developed by William E. Snell, Jr. in 1989 to assess the extent to which individuals engage in behavioral tendencies traditionally and stereotypically associated with the male gender role within Western culture. Unlike earlier instruments such as the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) or the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ), which primarily assessed global affective and personality traits, the MBS specifically targets behavioral enactments and behavioral self-descriptions across four distinct dimensions: Success Dedication, Restrictive Emotionality, Inhibited Affection, and Exaggerated Self-Reliance and Control. Each subscale contains five items evaluated on a 5-point bipolar Likert-type response format ranging from +2 (Agree) to -2 (Disagree). Psychometric investigations across diverse samples demonstrate that the MBS possesses adequate internal consistency reliability, with subscale Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging between .70 and .86, as well as robust construct, convergent, discriminant, and factorial validity. The instrument has contributed significantly to empirical investigations of masculine gender role strain, health-compromising behaviors, interpersonal intimacy deficits, emotional disclosure patterns, and psychological help-seeking reluctance among men. This article provides an exhaustive psychometric overview of the MBS, detailing its theoretical foundation, subscale taxonomy, structural validity, reliability parameters, clinical and research applications, and administrative scoring guidelines, alongside the complete authentic 20-item scale.

Keywords

Masculine Behavior Scale, William E. Snell Jr., gender role socialization, restrictive emotionality, inhibited affection, success dedication, exaggerated self-reliance, gender role strain, masculinity psychometrics, help-seeking behavior

Authors

The Masculine Behavior Scale was developed and validated by William E. Snell, Jr., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Southeast Missouri State University (Cape Girardeau, Missouri, United States). Dr. Snell is widely recognized in personality, social, and gender psychology for his extensive psychometric contributions, which include the development of the Masculine Behavior Scale (1989), the Feminine Expectations Scale, the Relationship Rating Form, the Multidimensional Sexual Self-Concept Questionnaire, and the Willingness to Disclose Scale. In subsequent validation studies and applications of the MBS, Dr. Snell collaborated with academic colleagues, including Laura Godwin (e.g., Snell & Godwin, 1993), investigating how stereotypical masculine behavioral tendencies influence attitudes toward sexual aggression, acquaintance rape, interpersonal communication, and coping mechanisms. Inquiries regarding Dr. Snell’s psychometric archives and historical research repositories have historically been hosted through the Southeast Missouri State University academic network and personal research repositories.

Purpose

The development of the Masculine Behavior Scale emerged from a critical conceptual and psychometric void within gender role research during the late 1970s and 1980s. Historically, masculinity and femininity were conceptualized as opposing poles of a single, continuous dimension. While Sandra Bem’s (1974) Bem Sex-Role Inventory and Spence, Helmreich, and Stapp’s (1974) Personal Attributes Questionnaire dismantled this bipolar assumption by advancing multidimensional, independent models of masculinity (instrumentality/agency) and femininity (expressiveness/communion), these pioneering tools measured generalized internal personality traits rather than overt behaviors or action-oriented behavioral norms. Consequently, researchers frequently conflated how a person viewed their personality with what they actually did in behavioral, relational, and occupational domains.

The primary purpose of the MBS is to operationalize and quantify the behavioral manifestations of the traditional masculine role. Rather than asking an individual whether they are generally “independent” or “assertive,” the MBS measures behavioral commitments (e.g., dedicating excessive time to career pursuits at the expense of other life areas), communicative practices (e.g., actively withholding emotional disclosure), relational styles (e.g., avoiding tenderness and close interpersonal intimacy), and autonomy behaviors (e.g., refusing help or external guidance). By capturing these self-reported behavioral repertoires, the MBS provides researchers and clinicians with a tool to investigate how rigid adherence to stereotypical masculine norms impacts psychosocial functioning, physical health, and interpersonal relationships.

In clinical, counseling, and health psychology contexts, the MBS serves several vital functions:

• Assessing Barriers to Help-Seeking: Men exhibiting high levels of exaggerated self-reliance and restrictive emotionality on the MBS consistently demonstrate resistance to psychotherapy, medical consultations, and psychiatric interventions, often viewing help-seeking as an admission of personal vulnerability or weakness.
• Evaluating Interpersonal and Marital Dysfunction: High scores on the Inhibited Affection and Restrictive Emotionality subscales correspond empirically to marital dissatisfaction, emotional withdrawal, alexithymia-like relational dynamics, and communication impasses between romantic partners.
• Investigating Health-Risk Behaviors: In behavioral medicine, the MBS allows investigators to explore how extreme Success Dedication and workaholism contribute to Type A coronary-prone behavior patterns, chronic stress, somatic neglect, and cardiovascular morbidity.
• Studying Violence and Aggression: Social psychologists utilize the MBS to determine the relationship between hypermasculine behavioral norms, rape myth acceptance, tolerance of sexual aggression, and domestic conflict (e.g., Snell & Godwin, 1993).

Psychological Construct

The Masculine Behavior Scale measures masculine behavioral conformity across four empirically derived and theoretically grounded dimensions. Each dimension captures a distinct facet of traditional male role socialization as conceptualized in sociological and psychometric frameworks (e.g., Brannon, 1976; David & Brannon, 1976; Snell, 1989).

1. Success Dedication

The Success Dedication subscale measures an individual’s intensive, single-minded devotion to professional advancement, career achievement, status acquisition, and occupational success. Rooted in the traditional masculine imperative that a man’s social worth is defined by his ability to compete, achieve, and provide (the “Big Wheel” archetype), this construct reflects a behavioral pattern wherein vocational endeavors take precedence over personal relationships, leisure, and well-being. Individuals scoring high on this dimension report allocating disproportionate time, energy, and effort toward occupational mobility (e.g., Item 1: “I spend a great deal of my time pursuing a highly successful career” and Item 9: “I devote extensive time and effort to the pursuit of a professional career”). While this orientation can yield economic gains, severe over-identification with the worker role can result in occupational burnout, chronic sympathetic nervous system activation, and relational isolation.

2. Restrictive Emotionality

The Restrictive Emotionality subscale captures an individual’s tendency to inhibit, suppress, and avoid the verbal communication or visible expression of internal emotional states. Socialized under the cultural norm that emotional expression signifies weakness, fragility, or femininity (the “No Sissy Stuff” rule), individuals high on restrictive emotionality systematically withhold discussions regarding their feelings, anxieties, and emotional vulnerabilities from others (e.g., Item 2: “I don’t usually discuss my feelings and emotions with others”; Item 14: “In general, I avoid discussions dealing with my feelings and emotions”). This construct is closely tied to psychological constructs such as normative male alexithymia, internalizing distress, and heightened physiological reactivity during interpersonal conflict.

3. Inhibited Affection

The Inhibited Affection subscale specifically measures behavioral resistance to engaging in close, tender, loving, and deeply intimate interpersonal attachments. While conceptually linked to restrictive emotionality, inhibited affection is distinct in that it reflects interpersonal detachment and behavioral avoidance of deep attachment bonds, rather than generalized emotional non-disclosure. High scorers actively distance themselves from intimate relational entanglements, avoid declarations of love, and limit deep affection in romantic or social connections (e.g., Item 3: “I don’t devote much time to intimate relationships”; Item 15: “I don’t often tell others about my feelings of love and affection for them”). This behavioral pattern often produces an avoidant attachment style, diminished relationship satisfaction, and pervasive interpersonal estrangement.

4. Exaggerated Self-Reliance and Control

The Exaggerated Self-Reliance and Control subscale evaluates an individual’s rigid insistence on autonomy, total environmental mastery, refusal of external assistance, and absolute authority over their personal decisions (the “Sturdy Oak” archetype). High scorers reject guidance, perceive advice as a challenge to their competence, and endeavor to maintain unilateral decision-making authority over all aspects of their lives (e.g., Item 4: “I try to be in control of everything in my life”; Item 12: “I don’t take orders (or advice) from anybody”). When taken to an extreme, this construct transforms healthy self-efficacy into hyper-autonomy, preventing collaborative problem-solving, exacerbating social isolation, and impeding clinical help-seeking during crises.

Theoretical Framework

The Masculine Behavior Scale is anchored in the social constructionist and gender role strain paradigms of masculinity, which emerged to challenge the earlier, essentialist “gender identity paradigm” in mid-to-late 20th-century psychology (Pleck, 1981, 1995; Levant, 1996).

For several decades, traditional psychoanalytic and trait theories postulated that acquiring a masculine or feminine identity was a biological and developmental imperative vital for healthy psychological maturation. Deviation from established gender norms was pathologized as gender identity confusion. However, the Gender Role Strain Paradigm advanced by Joseph Pleck (1981) contended that gender roles are not biologically determined or psychologically necessary constants; rather, they are socially constructed, historically mutable, and inherently contradictory cultural mandates. Pleck articulated that conforming to traditional male gender roles often exacts severe psychological, relational, and physical costs on men. This framework delineated three primary forms of strain:

1. Discrepancy Strain: The psychological distress experienced when an individual fails to meet society’s unrealistic masculine ideals.
2. Trauma Strain: The psychological damage sustained during the harsh, sometimes abusive, socialization process required to forge masculine behaviors (e.g., emotional shaming, physical hazing).
3. Dysfunction Strain: The hazardous consequences that emerge even when a man successfully fulfills masculine norms (e.g., emotional detachment, aggression, coronary-prone behavior, shortened lifespan).

The Masculine Behavior Scale operationalizes the behavioral dimensions directly responsible for Dysfunction Strain. Snell (1989) formulated the scale around the foundational sociological dimensions of male role expectations identified by Robert Brannon (David & Brannon, 1976), who codified Western masculine behavioral requirements into four classic aphorisms:

• “No Sissy Stuff”: The total rejection of all feminine traits, behaviors, and emotional vulnerabilities (captured in the MBS Restrictive Emotionality and Inhibited Affection subscales).
• “The Big Wheel”: The imperative to achieve status, respect, wealth, and power (captured in the MBS Success Dedication subscale).
• “The Sturdy Oak”: The requirement to remain unwavering, stoic, completely self-reliant, and emotionally impenetrable during adversity (captured in the MBS Exaggerated Self-Reliance and Control subscale).
• “Give ’Em Hell”: The expectation of aggressive assertiveness and physical dominance.

In addition, the MBS integrates James O’Neil’s (1981) theoretical work on Gender Role Conflict (GRC), which conceptualizes the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral rigidities that arise when men fear emotional expression, vulnerability, and loss of power. By translating these complex sociological and clinical constructs into specific self-reported behavioral items, Snell provided a quantitative methodology to bridge abstract gender role theories with empirical psychometrics.

Validity

Empirical evaluations of the Masculine Behavior Scale demonstrate satisfactory construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity across diverse research cohorts.

Construct and Convergent Validity

During the initial validation phases, Snell (1989) administered the MBS alongside several established measures of sex-role orientation, emotional expressiveness, and interpersonal disclosure. The subscales demonstrated significant, theoretically congruent correlations:

• Sex-Role Inventories: The Success Dedication and Exaggerated Self-Reliance and Control subscales demonstrated moderate positive correlations (ranging from r = .32 to .48, p < .001) with the Masculinity/Instrumentality scales of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ). Conversely, these subscales were generally uncorrelated or weakly negatively correlated with BSRI/PAQ Expressiveness/Femininity scales, verifying that the MBS selectively captures instrumental and agentic gender traits.
• Emotional Disclosure and Affect: The Restrictive Emotionality and Inhibited Affection subscales demonstrated substantial negative correlations with Jourard’s Self-Disclosure Questionnaire and Dr. Snell’s Willingness to Disclose Scale (correlations ranging from r = -.38 to -.56, p < .001). Individuals who endorsed higher levels of restrictive emotionality and inhibited affection reported significantly lower willingness to disclose feelings of sadness, depression, fear, and tender affection to romantic partners and same-sex peers.
• Emotional Expressiveness: High scores on Restrictive Emotionality were positively correlated with objective measures of emotional inhibition and normative male alexithymia, confirming that the subscale accurately reflects emotional constriction.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been corroborated by demonstrating that MBS subscales are distinct from generalized social desirability and simple neuroticism. While the Restrictive Emotionality and Inhibited Affection subscales correlate with social distress and interpersonal avoidance, they do not correlate with standard intelligence tests, generalized cognitive aptitude, or basic demographic variables such as socioeconomic status. Furthermore, the correlation between Success Dedication and Inhibited Affection is typically near zero (r ≈ .04 to .12, non-significant), demonstrating that ambition and emotional intimacy avoidance are structurally distinct behaviors rather than a unitary, undifferentiated trait.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

The predictive utility of the MBS has been demonstrated across several domains:

• Attitudes Toward Sexual Aggression: Snell and Godwin (1993) demonstrated that higher scores on the MBS subscales (particularly Exaggerated Self-Reliance and Control and Restrictive Emotionality) predicted higher levels of victim-blaming, adherence to acquaintance rape myths, and tolerance of sexually aggressive tactics in simulated dating vignettes.
• Psychological and Medical Help-Seeking: In counseling psychology investigations, high scores on Exaggerated Self-Reliance and Control and Restrictive Emotionality consistently predicted negative attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, reluctance to attend therapy, and underreporting of somatic symptoms during clinical consultations.

Reliability

The psychometric reliability of the Masculine Behavior Scale has been evaluated through multiple indices of internal consistency and temporal stability.

Internal Consistency

In the primary psychometric validation study conducted by Snell (1989) with collegiate men and women, Cronbach’s alpha (α) coefficients demonstrated acceptable to good internal reliability across all four subscales:

• Success Dedication: α = .84 to .86 (demonstrating high homogeneity among career-focused behavioral items).
• Restrictive Emotionality: α = .78 to .83 (reflecting cohesive measurement of non-disclosure and emotional suppression).
• Inhibited Affection: α = .76 to .81 (confirming consistent measurement of relational detachment and tenderness avoidance).
• Exaggerated Self-Reliance and Control: α = .70 to .75 (demonstrating acceptable internal consistency for a 5-item autonomy construct).

Subsequent studies replicating the MBS in community, clinical, and non-collegiate male samples (e.g., Snell & Godwin, 1993) reported total scale and subscale alpha coefficients consistently exceeding the acceptable .70 benchmark, with composite scale reliabilities hovering between .81 and .88.

Test-Retest Stability

Test-retest reliability was evaluated over intervals ranging from four to six weeks in undergraduate cohorts. The stability coefficients demonstrated marked consistency over time:

• Success Dedication: r = .82
• Restrictive Emotionality: r = .79
• Inhibited Affection: r = .74
• Exaggerated Self-Reliance and Control: r = .71

These temporal stability values indicate that while the MBS assesses behavioral choices that remain susceptible to environmental contexts, the underlying behavioral patterns reflect stable behavioral dispositions over time.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the Masculine Behavior Scale was originally established through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and subsequently evaluated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Structure

In Snell’s (1989) foundational investigation, the initial pool of potential behavioral items was submitted to a principal components factor analysis with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations. Scree plot inspections, eigenvalues exceeding unity (> 1.0), and parallel analysis supported a robust four-factor solution accounting for approximately 52.4% of the total variance.

The four extracted factors matched the theoretical model precisely, with five items loading cleanly onto each factor without substantial cross-loadings (defined as secondary loadings > .30):

• Factor 1 (Success Dedication): Items 1, 5, 9, 13, and 17 loaded strongly, with primary factor loadings ranging from .65 to .83.
• Factor 2 (Restrictive Emotionality): Items 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18 exhibited primary factor loadings ranging from .58 to .79.
• Factor 3 (Inhibited Affection): Items 3, 7, 11, 15, and 19 displayed primary factor loadings ranging from .54 to .77.
• Factor 4 (Exaggerated Self-Reliance and Control): Items 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 exhibited primary factor loadings ranging from .48 to .74.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Integrity

Subsequent psychometric evaluations utilizing Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) tested the four-factor correlated model against alternative specifications (e.g., a unidimensional masculinity model and a two-factor model combining Restrictive Emotionality with Inhibited Affection). The hypothesized four-factor correlated model demonstrated superior fit across standard goodness-of-fit indices:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .92 to .94
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .90 to .93
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .048 to .058 (90% CI [.041, .066])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .051

In contrast, the unidimensional model yielded poor fit indices (CFI < .70, RMSEA > .11), underscoring that traditional masculine behavior cannot be understood as a monolithic construct, but rather operates as a multidimensional configuration of career, emotional, relational, and autonomy-seeking behaviors.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Masculine Behavior Scale is structured as follows:

• Test Type: Self-report multidimensional behavioral assessment questionnaire.
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (typically ages 16 and older). Although designed to measure stereotypically masculine behaviors, it can be administered to individuals of any gender or biological sex.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil or computerized/online administration; suitable for individual or group settings.
• Completion Time: Approximately 5 to 10 minutes.
• Item Count: 20 items distributed across 4 subscales (5 items per subscale).
• Subscale Distribution:
  • Success Dedication Subscale: Items 1, 5, 9, 13, 17
  • Restrictive Emotionality Subscale: Items 2, 6, 10, 14, 18
  • Inhabited (Inhibited) Affection Subscale: Items 3, 7, 11, 15, 19
  • Exaggerated Self-Reliance & Control Subscale: Items 4, 8, 12, 16, 20
• Response Scale: 5-point bipolar Likert scale with integer values:
  • A = +2 = Agree
  • B = +1 = Slightly agree
  • C = 0 = Neither agree nor disagree
  • D = -1 = Slightly disagree
  • E = -2 = Disagree
• Scoring Procedures:
  • All 20 items are keyed in the positive direction; there are no reverse-scored items.
  • Subscale scores are obtained by calculating the algebraic sum of the items assigned to that subscale. Since each subscale consists of 5 items rated from -2 to +2, subscale scores range from -10 (extreme non-conformity) to +10 (extreme conformity to the masculine behavior), with 0 representing the neutral midpoint.
  • Alternatively, researchers may calculate the subscale mean score by dividing the sum by 5, preserving the -2 to +2 metric for comparison across subscales.
  • A total composite Masculine Behavior score can be derived by summing all 20 items (range: -40 to +40), though subscale-level analysis is recommended due to the distinct nature of the four constructs.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Masculine Behavior Scale was formally published in 1989 by William E. Snell, Jr. in the journal Sex Roles. Dr. Snell deposited the instrument into the public academic domain for non-commercial educational, scholarly, and clinical research purposes.

Licensing and Fees: No licensing fees, royalties, or formal commercial permissions are required for non-profit academic research, university teaching, dissertation research, or clinical evaluation. Researchers and clinicians are free to use and reproduce the scale provided that full and proper academic attribution is credited to Dr. William E. Snell, Jr. and the original 1989 validation publication. Commercial distribution, inclusion within proprietary fee-charging software platforms, or commercial publication requires prior authorization.

References

Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42(2), 155–162. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0036215

Brannon, R. (1976). The male sex role: Our culture’s blueprint of manhood, and what it’s done for us lately. In D. David & R. Brannon (Eds.), The Forty-Nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role (pp. 1–45). Addison-Wesley.

David, D. S., & Brannon, R. (Eds.). (1976). The forty-nine percent majority: The male sex role. Addison-Wesley.

Levant, R. F. (1996). The new psychology of men. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 27(3), 259–265. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.27.3.259

O’Neil, J. M. (1981). Patterns of gender role conflict and strain: Sexism and fear of femininity in men’s lives. Personnel & Guidance Journal, 60(4), 203–210. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2164-4918.1981.tb00281.x

O’Neil, J. M. (2008). Summarizing 25 years of research on men’s gender role conflict using the Gender Role Conflict Scale: New research paradigms and clinical implications. The Counseling Psychologist, 36(3), 358–445. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000008317057

Pleck, J. H. (1981). The myth of masculinity. MIT Press.

Pleck, J. H. (1995). The gender role strain paradigm: An update. In R. F. Levant & W. S. Pollack (Eds.), A new psychology of men (pp. 11–32). Basic Books.

Snell, W. E., Jr. (1989). Development and validation of the Masculine Behavior Scale: A measure of behaviors stereotypically attributed to males vs. females. Sex Roles, 21(11–12), 749–767. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00289805

Snell, W. E., Jr., & Godwin, L. (1993). Social reactions to depictions of casual and steady acquaintance rape: The impact of AIDS exposure and stereotypic beliefs about women. Sex Roles, 29(9–10), 599–616. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00289207

Spence, J. T., Helmreich, R., & Stapp, J. (1974). Ratings of self and peers on sex role attributes and their relation to self-esteem and conceptions of masculinity and femininity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32(1), 29–39. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0076857

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)