Male Gender Role Conflict, Depression, and Help Seeking: Do College Men Face Double Jeopardy?

Abstract

To investigate the previously untested hypothesis that college men with higher levels of male gender role conflict (MGRC) experience both increased risk of depression and more negative attitudes toward seeking counseling services, this study used latent variable modeling to examine these relations. Two components of MGRC were identified: restriction‐related MGRC, which predicted 25% of the variance in help‐seeking attitudes, and achievement‐relatedMGRC, which predicted 21% of the variance in depression. It is suggested that outreach programs designed to increase college men's willingness to use counseling services attempt to counter the option‐limiting aspects of male gender roles, whereas counseling with depressed college men incorporate an examination of their perceptions of success and achievement.