This study examined gender role conflict in college-aged and middle-aged men. Eighty-eight college-aged men and 89 middle-aged men completed 5 measures that assess gender role conflict and psychological well-being. Multivariate analysis of variance results indicated that, compared with college-aged men, middle-aged men were less conflicted about success, power, and competition, but were more conflicted between work and family responsibilities. Canonical analysis indicated two significant roots between (a) gender role conflict and psychological well-being and (b) age group, gender role conflict, and psychological wellbeing. The discussion focuses on implications for counseling, limitations, and future research.

The authors hypothesized that men would report using psychological defenses to the degree they self-reported masculine gender role conflict. One hundred fifteen men completed the Gender Role Conflict Scale, the Defense Style Questionnaire, and the Defense Mechanism Inventory. Canonical correlations indicated that men experiencing greater rigidity about being successful, powerful, and competitive; expressing emotions; and expressing affection to other men used more immature psychological defenses and some degree of neurotic defenses. More specifically, these men tended to use defenses of turning against object and projection and tended not to use principalization and reversal. The discussion focuses on the effects of male gender role strain, implications for treatment, limitations, and future research.

The purpose of the study was to more fully understand how the messages men internalize related to gender role socialization are associated with depression. As a means of identifying specific masculinity messages associated with depression, 27 depressed and 27 nondepressed men, more than 90% of whom were Caucasian, were compared on their endorsement of individual gender role conflict items. Results indicated that the depressed and nondepressed men differed on many items across the 4 factors of masculine gender role conflict. The discussion focuses on identifying internalized messages that may be associated with the gender role conflict items and highlights clinical issues salient to working with depressed male clients.

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