Masculine gender role conflict: Effects on college men's psychological well-being, chemical substance usage, and attitudes towards help-seeking.

Abstract

The authors investigated the effects of gender role conflict (GRC) on college men's scores of psychological well-being, substance usage, and attitudes toward psychological help-seeking. Each of the 4 GRC variables was significantly related to at least 1 variable of interest. The Success, Power, and Competition variable of GRC was significantly related to (a) a decrease in psychological well-being, including scores for Trait Anger, the Angry Reaction subtype of trait anger, and the Angry Temperament subtype of trait anger, and (b) an increased report of alcohol usage. The Restricted Emotionality variable of GRC was significantly related to (a) a decrease in psychological well-being, including scores for Trait Anger and Trait Anxiety; (b) negative attitudes toward help-seeking; and (c) an increased similarity in personality style to chemical abusers.

Men in Traditional and Nontraditional Careers: Gender Role Attitudes, Gender Role Conflict, and Job Satisfaction

“…In short, it appears that these engineers were experiencing some measure of cost in their lives related to their adherence to traditional male gender role expectations. Indeed, there is consistent evidence that men who experience greater gender role conflict also experience more psychological distress (e.g., Blazina & Watkins, 1996;Cournoyer & Mahalik, 1995;Good, Robertson, Fitzgerald, Stevens, & Bartels, 1996;Simonsen, Blazina, & Watkins, 2000), although the men's psychological distress was not measured in this study.…”

Understanding How Masculine Gender Scripts May Contribute to Men's Adjustment Following Treatment for Prostate Cancer

“…Similarly, emotionally restricted men suffer more severe heart attacks and delay seeking treatment longer than do men scoring low in this characteristic (Helgeson, 1990). Enactment of traditional masculine scripts is also associated with an array of health risk behaviors, including greater substance abuse (Blazina & Watkins, 1996;Mahalik, Lagan, & Morrison, in press), coronary-prone behavior (Mahalik et al, in press;Watkins, Eisler, Carpenter, Schechtman, & Fisher, 1991), violence and aggression (Locke & Mahalik, 2005;Mahalik et al, in press;Mahalik, Locke, et al, 2003), poor use of preventive health care (Mahalik et al, in press), risky sexual and driving behaviors (Mahalik et al, in press;Pleck, Sonenstein, & Ku, 1994), and less willingness to consult medical and mental health care providers (Addis & Mahalik, 2003).…”

Potential benefits of expressive writing for male college students with varying degrees of restrictive emotionality.

“…With regard to intrapersonal problems, men's restrictive emotionality has been found to be related to psychological distress (Liu, Rochlen, & Mohr, 2005), anxiety, (Cournoyer, 1994;Sharpe & Heppner, 1991;Wong, Pituch, & Rochlen, 2006), depression (Good & Mintz, 1990;Mahalik & Cournoyer, 2000;Sharpe & Heppner, 1991;Shepard, 2002;Zamarripa, Wampold, & Gregory, 2003), a negative view of help-seeking (Robertson & Fitzgerald, 1992), immature psychological defenses (Mahalik, Cournoyer, Defranc, Cherry, & Napolitano, 1998), an increased similarity in personality style to chemical abusers (Blazina & Watkins, Jr., 1996), paranoia and psychoticism (Good, Robertson, Fitzgerald, Stevens, & Bartels, 1996), and negative attitudes toward emotional expression (Wong et al, 2006).…”