Attitudes Toward Women Scale
The Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS), developed by Janet Spence and Robert Helmreich in 1972, is a self-report Likert instrument that measures beliefs about the appropriate rights and roles of women in contemporary society. Respondents indicate their agreement with statements about vocational, educational, intellectual, marital, and social conduct expectations for women, yielding a single score that ranges from traditional and conservative to egalitarian and liberal.
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Sources
- Spence, J. T., & Helmreich, R. (1972). The Attitudes Toward Women Scale: An objective instrument to measure attitudes toward the rights and roles of women in contemporary society. JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 2, 66–67. link ↗
- Spence, J. T., Helmreich, R., & Stapp, J. (1973). A short version of the Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS). Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 2(4), 219–220. DOI: 10.3758/BF03329252 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS). ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/gender-studies/attitudes-toward-women-scale
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