The Relationships between Patriarchal Family Environment and Men’s Depression: The Mediating Effects of Sexism and Men’s Gender Role Conflict

Abstract

In Korean society where Confucian patriarchy is highly influential, Confucian family environment may impact sons' psychology in complex ways. The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationships between patriarchal family environment and men's depression, and whether the relationships between these two variables were mediated by sexism and men's gender role conflict based on the gender role stain paradigm (Levant, 1996;Pleck, 1981) and the theory of gender role conflict (O'Neil & Nadeau, 1999). Those who participated in the study using an online questionnaire were 177 male undergraduates and graduate students in a college of science and engineering. The structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data in order to examine the structural relationships among variables and the mediating effects. As a result, patriarchal family environment had both direct and indirect effects on men's depression. That is, the relationships between patriarchal family environment and men's depression were mediated by sexism and men's gender role conflict. These results indicated that patriarchal family environment could cause sexism which resulted in gender role conflict, and that gender role conflict could negatively influence men's mental health. The implications and limitations of the study were also discussed.

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