Development and Testing of a New Version of the Hypermasculinity Index

The high prevalence and serious consequences associated with rape makes its prevention an important social work goal. Rape prevention necessitates understanding the attitudes and personality characteristics of actual and potential rapists. Within the research on attitudinal correlates of rape, hypermasculinity consistently emerges as one of the strongest predictors. The most commonly used measure of hypermasculinity, the Hypermasculinity Index (HMI), uses a forced-choice format that impairs its psychometric properties. This article presents the results of testing a revised version of the HMI using a phrase-completion response format. A convenience sample of undergraduate men (N = 284) from a rural New England university was used. Findings indicate that the new version yields more normally distributed data with a higher internal reliability coefficient. Even more important, the revised version greatly reduced social desirability bias and improved the ability to detect the underlying structure of hypermasculinity.