Validity, Reliability, and Invariance of the Double Sexual Standard in a Colombian and Mexican Sample

Objective: To analyze the validity, reliability and invariance of the Double Sexual Standard questionnaire in a sample of Colombian and Mexican adolescents and young adults. Methods: The participants were 1,906 individuals, of whom 795 were men (41,7 %) and 1111 were women (58,2 %), aged between 15 and 28 (M = 20,16; SD = 2,28). The 61,1 % of the sample were Colombian and 38,8% were Mexican. The Sexual Double Standard Scale was used, which allows for the evaluation of more permissive acceptance when judging the sexual behavior of men than that of women. Results: Although the original questionnaire has a unidimensional structure, exploratory factor analysis yielded two factors, which were named: factor 1 (condescending sexual behavior toward men) and factor 2 (strict sexual behavior toward women), explaining 51,7 % of the variance. This new version has adequate reliability. Furthermore, confirmatory factor analysis was used to verify this new version, and the fit indices were adequate (>0,908). The Differential Functioning (DIF) of the 10 items (DIF) was evaluated to identify whether the probability of responding differently to the double standard sexual behavior items in the Mexican and Colombian populations was concentrated. Item 8 showed a problematic pattern, with a significant uniform and non-uniform DIF in favor of Mexico. Similarly, item 3 showed non-uniform DIF, suggesting that it discriminates differently between the two countries. Likewise, statistically significant differences were found in condescending sexual behavior toward men and strict sexual behavior toward women, with Colombian men scoring higher than Mexican men. Conclusions: The results of this research provide a valid and standardized measurement tool for the study of sexual double standards and the development of promotion and prevention programs for related issues such as intimate partner violence, sexism, and gender studies in sex education.