KLONSKY ET AL.GENDER ROLE AND PERSONALITY DISORDERS GENDER ROLE AND PERSONALITY DISORDERS

Many researchers have hypothesized relationships between personality disorders and gender role (i.e., masculinity and femininity). However, re-search has not addressed if people who are masculine or feminine more often meet the criteria for personality disorders. The present study exam-ined whether college students (N = 665, 60 % women) higher in masculin-ity or femininity more often exhibited features of the 10 DSM-IV personality disorders. Feminine men exhibited more features of all the personality disorders except antisocial. Dependent traits were associ-ated with higher femininity and lower masculinity. Antisocial traits were associated with masculinity. Both men and women who typically be-haved consistent with their gender had more narcissistic and histrionic features, whereas participants who typically behaved unlike their gender had more features of the Cluster A personality disorders. The issue of gender differences in the diagnosis of personality disorders has received much attention in the psychological and psychiatric literature. Th