Project Summary

Men are less likely to seek help for mental health problems compared to women across races, ethnicities, ages, and other sociocultural backgrounds (Addis & Mahalik, 2003). An array of explanations addressing the phenomenon of men’s avoidance of help-seeking are offered, often focusing on male gender role socialization. One prominent theory, the Precarious Manhood model, suggests that rejecting help-seeking is connected to enhancing masculine status after experiencing a threat to that status, such as being perceived as weak for experiencing the suffering of depression (Bosson & Vandello, 2011; Vandello & Bosson, 2013). To better understand men’s reluctance to seek help for mental health issues, we investigated the contributions of depression, stigma, and masculinity on help-seeking likelihood in a sample of depressed men.

Approach

Online survey data collection, mediation analysis, moderated mediation analysis.

Key Findings

Results supported a partial mediation model where (a) self-reliance, emotional control, and self-stigma directly related to lower likelihood of help-seeking, (b) self-reliance and emotional control predicted greater self-stigma, (c) depression predicted greater self-reliance and emotional control, (d) self-reliance and emotional control had indirect effects on help-seeking being partially mediated by self-stigma, and (e) depression had significant indirect effects on both help-seeking and stigma, being fully mediated by self-reliance and emotional control.

Documents