Pervasive Ambiguity About Gender (PAAG) Scale

 

Originally published in my article (with Walker West Brewer and Nash Jenkins) “Pervasive Ambiguity About Gender: Quantifying the Cognitive and Affect Experience of Disorientation Regarding Changing Understandings of Gender in Society” in Sex Roles (2026), PAAG is a 9-item scale used to measure individuals’ experience of sociocognitive disorientation regarding contemporary transformations in gender categories, norms, and roles. Specifically, the scale captures the extent to which individuals experience gender as increasingly difficult to interpret, understand, or navigate, reflecting a broader condition of perceived instability in the social organization of gender. The studies in which the PAAG scale was developed confirmed its unidimensional structure and demonstrated the convergent, discriminant, predictive, and concurrent validities of the measure. The scale was also shown to have consistently high reliability (α = 0.94 − 0.96, ωh = 0.91 − 0.92).

Importantly, the scale was developed and validated using samples drawn from the United States, and its applicability in other cultural or national contexts has not yet been established. Researchers interested in using the scale in other cultural settings are strongly encouraged to conduct appropriate validation analyses prior to interpreting results.

Please note, the scale is entirely free to use for any researcher, so long as the final report appropriately cites the scale's origin (i.e., the 2025 Sex Roles article). If you are interested in adapting or validating the scale for another purpose or in another cultural context, please contact me.

How to use the scale

The PAAG scale is scored by averaging responses to all nine items. Response options range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and are scored such that higher scores indicate greater pervasive ambiguity about gender, while lower scores indicate less ambiguity.

The italicized language below is suggested to precede the items of the scale.

The Pervasive Ambiguity About Gender (PAAG) scale

The following statements relate to norms about gender in society today. There are no right or wrong answer—only your personal feelings and opinions. Be sure to read the prompts carefully and to answer each one honestly.

Please rate your agreement with the following statements on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)..

  1. I feel like there are too many different gender identities to keep track of.

  2. Male, female, nonbinary, gender fluid— I can’t keep up with it all.

  3. I feel like there are so many different gender identities that it’s hard to keep track of them all.

  4. I miss the days when men were men and women were women.

  5. I feel like the rules about gender are constantly changing, and I can’t keep up.

  6. Life was simpler when everyone knew what it was to be male or female.

  7. I am confused by the increasing number of gender identities that people identify with.

  8. I find it difficult to keep up with the latest terminology used to describe gender identities.

  9. I feel like there are so many conflicting messages about gender in the media and in society.