A typical assumption has been that women and men possess distinct power orientations: women have expressive characteristics, such as interdependence and cooperativeness, while men have instrumental characteristics, such as self reliance and competitiveness. An inventory assessing expressive and instrumental power orientations (PVO's) was developed so that individual power orientations could be ascertained. PVO's are conceptions of significant worth associated with a set of expressive or instrumental sex role attitudes which enable effective behavior. Five categories of values indicators are: (1) goals/purposes/aspirations; (2) beliefs/convictions/commitments; (3) behaviors/activities/conduct; (4) feelings/emotions/sentiments; and (5) problems/obstacles/concerns. In the preliminary PVO's, 230 professional and college athletes were judged expressive or instrumental, depending on the point distribution over a scale median. The revised PVO inventory has 30 items and can be used as an educational or research tool, to ascertain the PVO's of people grouped by age, socioeconomic level, vocation, sport, or competitive level. A table shows the PVO scale by sex and athletic status. (FG)