How do nursing students and nursing experts rate their sex-role characteristics and the sex-role characteristics of the "ideal nurse?" Is there congruence between the perceived sex-role characteristics of the participants and how they "felt" while performing nursing behaviors? What are the demographic characteristics of the four subgroups; female nursing students, male nursing students, female nursing experts and male nursing experts?.

The task of the 64 participants was to describe their own sex-role characteristics and the sex-role characteristics of their perception of the "ideal nurse" utilizing BSRI Short Form. Next, the participants were to describe how they felt while performing selected nursing activities utilizing White's Checklist of Nursing Activities. Finally, participants were to complete a demographic questionnaire. Crosstabulation, Pearsons Correlation, Chi Square, Frequencies and Reliability analyses were used to analyze the data.

In each subgroup of 16 participants, the majority rated their sex-role characteristics as androgynous and an even greater majority rated the "ideal nurse" as androgynous. The "ideal nurse" was described as androgynous by 44 participants, which was equally distributed between male and female.

The demographic backgrounds of the female nursing students were comparable to other research studies. Despite the age difference between the females, the female nursing experts were similar to the female nursing students. The male nursing students were similar to male nursing experts but different than female nursing students. Additionally, the male nursing students demographic profile has changed when compared to Mannino's (1963) study. The male nursing experts reflect this profile.

The gender of the participants was the predicting factor of how participants would feel while performing nursing behaviors. There was no congruence between the self-described sex-role characteristics, the described sex-role characteristics of the "ideal nurse" and the perceived nursing behaviors.

The major results from this study indicate that androgyny is a desirable sex-role for nursing. In addition, since the majority of the participants retained their gender identity while performing nursing behaviors, the implication is that one does not have to give up gender identity in order to be a nurse.