Psychologists looking at 10 years of data from nearly 20,000 men found that those who value having power over women and endorse playboy behavior and other traditional notions of masculinity are more likely to suffer from psychological problems — and less likely to seek out help.
Turns out that cultural norms that hurt half of a society’s members aren’t too good for the other half, either. Who’d have thunk it?
The new meta-analysis, which was published Monday in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, synthesized 78 studies on masculinity and mental health gathered between 2003 and 2013. The participants ranged in age from 12 to over 65, and the vast majority were men. A little more than half of the studies involved predominantly white men, although some focused on African Americans or Asian Americans. Most of the studies didn’t ask respondents’ sexual orientation, but among those that did, most of the participants were straight.
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