Abstract
Viewing at least the beginnings of personality development beyond culturally stereotypic sex-roles as theoretically related to the openness to confront existential issues in general, the confrontation-avoidance of existential issues for 32 male and 32 female psychiatric inpatients was investigated. Subjects were grouped for analysis of variance by gender and by median splits of Bern Sex-role Inventory scores for masculinity and femininity. Although both male and female stereotypic sex-role groups evidenced the greatest avoidance of existential issues, the only statistically significant trend was found for the interaction of gender by masculinity which was attributable to the endorsement of masculine adjectives by females being associated with the most existential confrontation. Discussed in view of Bern's similar findings regarding flexibility and females' scores for masculine adjective endorsement, the results were viewed as supporting our model for female patients but not for males.