Women's Perceptions of Male Partners' Gender

Psychology of Men & Masculinity 2004, Vol. 5, No. 2, 147–157

Copyright 2004 by the Educational Publishing Foundation 1524-9220/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1524-9220.5.2.147

Women’s Perceptions of Male Partners’ Gender Role Conflict as Predictors of Psychological Well-Being and Relationship Satisfaction Aaron B. Rochlen

James R. Mahalik

University of Texas at Austin

Boston College

This study evaluated the relationship between women’s perceptions of men’s gender role conflict and women’s relationship satisfaction and well-being. One hundred seventy-five women reported perceptions of their most recent or current male romantic partner’s gender role conflict and rated their own levels of somatization, depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and relationship satisfaction. Women who perceived their romantic partners as scoring higher on Success, Power, and Competition and lower on Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men reported greater levels of depression and anxiety. Women who perceived their partners as scoring lower on Success, Power, and Competition and Restrictive Emotionality reported greater relationship satisfaction. Gender role conflict factors did not predict women’s somatization or self-esteem levels. Counseling implications, suggestions for future research, and limitations are discussed.

Psychologists are increasingly focused on understanding how socialized gender roles contribute to individuals’ well-being and the quality of their relationships (Hunter & Forden, 2002; Kirchmeyer, 2002; Witt, 2000). In addition, it has been frequently recommended that clinicians incorporate gender role discussions and analyses into psychological work with clients based, in part, on the demonstrated connection between gender roles and well-being (Brooks & Good, 2001; Brown, 1986; Gilbert & Scher, 1999; Mahalik, Good, & Englar-Carlson, 2003). To facilitate these discussions and to further research in this area, researchers have developed an array of promising gender role models (see Gilbert & Scher, 1999). One of the most heuristic of these models has been O’Neil’s (1981a, 1981b, 1982) masculine gender role conflict model. In this model, gender role conflict is described as a “psychological state in which socialized gender roles have negative consequences on the

Aaron B. Rochlen, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin; James R. Mahalik, Department of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology, Lynch School of Education, Boston College. We express appreciation to Lee Land, Joel Wong, Kevin Flahive, and Meredith Draper for their assistance with data collection and entry. Special thanks to Elisabeth Morray and Lee Land for their insightful comments on earlier versions of the article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Aaron B. Rochlen, Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling Psychology Program, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station D5800, Austin, TX 78712. E-mail: [email protected] 147

person or others” (O’Neil, Good, & Holmes, 1995, p. 166). Through work on the Gender Role Conflict Scale, O’Neil, Helms, Gable, David, and Wrightsman (1986) identified four patterns labeled Success, Power, and Competition; Restrictive Emotionality; Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men; and Conflict Between Work and Family. Results from over 150 empirical studies support O’Neil et al.’s (1995) assertion that masculine gender role conflict has negative consequences for men. For example, studies indicate that gender role conflict is related to both general psychological distress (Hayes & Mahalik, 2000) as well as specific psychological problems, including greater rates of depression and anxiety (Cournoyer & Mahalik, 1995; Good & Mintz, 1990; Good & Wood, 1995; Sharpe & Heppner, 1991), lower self-esteem (Cournoyer & Mahalik, 1995), heightened stress levels (Sharpe & Heppner, 1991), higher rates of alcohol or substance abuse (Blazina & Watkins, 1996; Ritter & Cole, 1992), and career problems (Rochlen & O’Brien, 2002). Despite the significant progress in this research area, surprisingly few studies have examined the second component of O’Neil et al.’s (1986, 1995) thesis, namely, that men’s gender role conflict has negative consequences on the lives of other people. One study that did examine this issue reported that adult sons’ estimates of their fathers’ gender role conflict related to their own levels of gender role conflict, as well as to lower levels of attachment to their fathers (DeFranc & Mahalik, 2002). However, to date, no work that we know of has examined how men’s gender role conflict may contribute to women’s experiences.

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As such, the purpose of this study was to examine how women experience the gender role conflict of a romantic male partner and how it relates to their psychological health, self-esteem, and satisfaction with the relationship. As the basis for our hypotheses, we reviewed relevant literature addressing the relationship between male gender role conflict and intimacy, relationship satisfaction, and harmful attitudes and behaviors toward women. Of importance, all of these studies were initiated from the perspective of male participants, as opposed to other significant people in the men’s lives. For example, studies examining the relationship between intimacy and gender role conflict in both college-aged (Sharpe & Heppner, 1991) and middle-aged men (Cournoyer & Mahalik, 1995; Mahalik, Locke, Theodore, Cournoyer, & Lloyd, 2001; Sharpe, Heppner, & Dixon, 1995) consistently report that men with higher levels of gender role conflict express greater difficulty with intimacy. This relationship seems to be particularly salient for men with difficulty expressing their emotions in relationships (Sharpe et al., 1995) and for middle-aged men (Mahalik et al., 2001). Similar patterns emerge when relationship and marital satisfaction were examined, with men exhibiting higher levels of gender role conflict appearing to have more conflictual and less satisfying relationships and marriages. For example, Campbell and Snow (1992) found that married men with difficulty expressing their emotions and conflict between their work and home relations reported lower levels of relationship satisfaction. Sharpe and Heppner (1991) also reported that greater conflict between work and home related to lower levels of relationship satisfaction. Finally, Sharpe et al. (1995) found that men with difficulty expressing their emotions reported being less satisfied with their relationships. Also pertinent to our study was research addressing the relationship of gender role conflict to attitudes and behaviors that are harmful to interpersonal relationships and affect the quality of women’s lives. For example, Kearney, Rochlen, and King (2004) reported that men who were more tolerant of sexual harassment behaviors (i.e., less likely to perceive harassing behaviors as unacceptable) expressed high levels of Success, Power, and Competition and overall gender role conflict. This finding is consistent with several studies reporting that men’s traditional gender roles contribute to problematic interactions with women. For example, Pryor (1987) reported that men with more traditional gender role beliefs were more likely to sexually harass than men holding less traditional

gender-related belief systems. Similarly, Wade and Brittan-Powell (2001) reported that men with traditional masculine ideology held more negative attitudes concerning women’s equality, as well as attitudes more conducive to the sexual harassment of others, than nontraditional men. Furthermore, Powell (1986) reported that traditional men identified less sexual harassment in harassment scenarios than did nontraditional men. In addition to the findings reviewed above, the constructs associated with O’Neil et al.’s (1986) gender role conflict factors seem logically related to negative consequences for men’s female romantic partners. For example, men’s emotional expression appears to be a central component to healthy relationships (Knobloch, Solomon, & Haunani, 2002). Therefore, men’s discomfort with the expression of feelings, as reflected in the gender role conflict factor of Restrictive Emotionality, would likely relate to women’s satisfaction with the relationship. In addition, a woman with a particularly inexpressive male partner may also experience decreased psychological well-being and diminished feelings of self-esteem (i.e., may have negative feelings about herself based on current relationships). In a similar way, men who are perceived as being overly preoccupied with success and “being the best,” as reflected in the gender role conflict factor Success, Power, and Competition, may not be as invested in or have the time to spend building a positive rewarding relationship, thus influencing women’s feelings about themselves as well as their psychological health. We also considered that men who have difficulty being intimate and affectionate with other men (reflected in the Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men factor) are likely to have smaller social support networks. This might have the effect of placing burdens on their female partners to meet all of their intimacy needs, thus influencing feelings about themselves (i.e., self-esteem) and the relationship. Finally, we thought that men’s feelings of being conflicted between their school–work and their personal lives and feeling pulled away from personal commitments into work–school commitments, as reflected in the factor of Conflict Between Work and Family, would likely create stress in the romantic relationship and contribute to lower self-esteem and psychological health. Thus, we hypothesized that greater levels of men’s gender role conflict on the four factors, as evaluated from their female partners’ perspective, would predict lower levels of women’s psychological health, self-esteem, and relationship satisfaction.

MALE GENDER ROLE CONFLICT AND WOMEN’S WELL-BEING

Method Participants One hundred seventy-six female college students were recruited from undergraduate classes and psychology subject pools at two universities in the southwestern and northeastern regions of the United States. Participants averaged 20.94 years of age (SD ⳱ 3.07) and were mostly White (n ⳱ 118; 8 were African American or Black, 31 were Asian or Asian American, 6 were Native American or American Indian, 5 were Latina, and 13 were biracial), heterosexual (n ⳱ 174; 2 were bisexual), and involved in a romantic relationship at the time of the study (n ⳱ 93; 83 were not currently involved).

Measures Demographic questionnaire. A demographic questionnaire developed for this study collected information on participants’ age, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Because of the focus on each participant’s last romantic relationship, we also inquired about their current involvement with the romantic partner identified. If currently involved with him, participants were asked to indicate how many months they had been in this relationship (M ⳱ 2 years, 4 months). For relationships that had ended, participants reported whether the relationship ended within the past 5 months (54.8%), within the past 2 years (41.7%), or greater than the past 2 years (3.6%). Finally, we asked participants to evaluate their confidence in rating aspects of their partner’s personality on a 1 (not at all confident) to 10 (very much confident) Likert scale. The mean ratings on this index for participants currently involved and not involved in relationships were 8.86 and 8.00, respectively, reflecting a high level of confidence in their evaluations of their partners’ personality. Brief Symptom Inventory–18 (BSI-18; Derogatis, 2000). The BSI-18 is a fairly new 18-item questionnaire used to assess respondents’ distress on three psychological dimensions: Somatization, Depression, and Anxiety. Participants are asked to rate the extent to which they have been distressed or bothered by various problems over the past 7 days on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (no distress) to 4 (extreme distress). In the original norming of over 1,100 community participants, the subscales of the BSI-18 were found to highly correlate (> .90) with the original 53-item Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; Derogatis, 2000). The instrument was created as a shortened version of the BSI to facilitate use for clinical

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and research purposes. Derogatis and Melisaratos (1983) found 2-week test–retest reliability for the original BSI scale ranging from .68 to .91. The BSI has frequently been used in outcome studies and has been positively reviewed for construct validity (Derogatis & Savitz, 2000). For this study, we observed internal consistency estimates of .78, .82, and .82 for the Somatization, Depression, and Anxiety subscales, respectively. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965). The RSES is a 10-item questionnaire designed to measure personal well-being. Participants are asked to state their agreement with a range of statements that describe general feelings about themselves (e.g., “I feel I have a number of good qualities”). The 10 items are rated on a 4-point scale that ranges from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree), with higher scores representing higher selfesteem. The RSES has been described as the most widely used measure of global self-esteem (Lee, 2003), and there have been frequent studies documenting the construct validity and psychometric properties of this measure (Robins, Hendin, & Trzesniewski, 2001; Vispoel, Boo, & Bleiler, 2001). For this study, we observed an internal reliability estimate of .82. Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMSS; Schumm, Bollman, & Jurich, 1981). The KMSS is a frequently used three-item Likert-type questionnaire designed to assess satisfaction with marriage. Specifically, it asks how satisfied respondents are with their marriages, how satisfied they are with their relationship with their husband/wife, and how satisfied they are with their husband/wife as a spouse. For the purpose of our study, we substituted the word “relationship” for the word “marriage” and the word “boyfriend/partner” for the word “husband/wife.” The questionnaire has most frequently been used with a Likert scale ranging from 1 (extremely dissatisfied) to 7 (extremely satisfied), with high scores reflecting a greater degree of satisfaction. Test–retest reliability is reported to have been .71 over a 10-week period and to have ranged from .62 to .72 over 6 months (Mitchell, Newell, & Schumm, 1983). The KMSS has been correlated with constructs such as marital social desirability (.42–.54), locus of control (.18– .31), and personal depression (.33; Schumm et al., 1986). Schumm et al. (1981) reported Cronbach’s alpha values in the range of .81 to .98. In our study, alpha was .96. Gender Role Conflict Scale–I (GRCS-I; O’Neil et al., 1986). The GRCS-I is a 37-item questionnaire that assesses men’s thoughts and feelings concerning gender role behaviors. The measure consists

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of four patterns of gender role conflict, namely, Success, Power, and Competition; Restrictive Emotionality; Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men; and Conflict Between Work and Family. The Success, Power, and Competition factor relates to persistent worries about personal achievement, competition, and striving against others to be the best and most powerful (e.g., the measure asks whether respondents evaluate the value of other people by their levels of achievement and success). The Restrictive Emotionality factor measures difficulty and fear about expressing feelings and putting emotions into expressions (e.g., “Expressing feelings makes me open to attack by other people”). The Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men factor assesses difficulty in sharing feelings and thoughts with other men as well as sharing physical contact with other men (e.g., “Being very personal with other men makes me feel uncomfortable”). Finally, the Conflict Between Work and Family factor measures difficulties balancing work (or school) and family relations (e.g., “My work or school often disrupts other parts of my life—home, health, leisure”). Responses using the GRCS-I are made on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). The scales are calculated by summing the individual items, with high scores reflecting an expression of gender role conflict within that particular domain. For example, a high score on the Restrictive Emotionality scale reflects conflicted and uncomfortable feelings when expressing emotions. A total GRCS-I score, assessing an overall level of gender role conflict and adherence to traditional models of masculinity, can be computed by summing the total scores of the four subscales (O’Neil et al., 1995). Test–retest reliability over a 4-week period, for all scales, ranged from .72 to .86 (O’Neil et al., 1986). The GRCS-I subscales have been shown to be negatively related to psychological well-being (Blazina & Watkins, 1996; Cournoyer & Mahalik, 1995) and attitudes toward help seeking (Good et al., 1995). To reflect our goal of having women evaluate the presence of gender role conflict in a current or past partner, we made a subtle but important change to the instrument. For each item, we changed the wording to reinforce the idea that the participant was to evaluate the dimensions of another person and not themselves. For example, when asking how important it was to move up the career ladder, the phrase “to me” was modified to “to him.” After making these changes to the instrument, the alpha coefficients for the Success, Power, and Competition; Restrictive

Emotionality; Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men; and Conflict Between Work and Family were .91, .92, .90, and .88, respectively.

Procedures Data collection was completed at two different sites, an east coast private university and a large southwestern public university. Participants from both sites received course credit for their participation. Data from the participants from the northeastern university were collected via Internet survey. The measures described above along with informed consent and debriefing pages were converted to a series of Web pages. All participants were provided with an Internet address for the informed consent page, where they indicated their willingness to participate by clicking on a hyperlink at the bottom of the page. This link directed them to a page to record their name so that they could receive extra credit for completing the survey. Participants were then sent to another Web page that was linked to a separate data file to complete the survey, which took approximately 25 min. In this way, participants’ names were not linked to the data they provided. In addition, participants’ confidentiality was also protected in that the survey was encrypted using SSL, data was stored on the psychdata.net secure server, and the service did not use cookies to track any information about participants. Participants in the paper-and-pencil condition completed the study in groups of 3–10 people. Each group was supervised by a trained research assistant who was available to answer any questions and to provide participants with an oral and written debriefing. The instructions, identical for participants at both sites, explained that the study would involve completing a measure that would ask them to evaluate a male partner on various dimensions as well as their own satisfaction with the relationship and psychological health. Specifically, participants were asked to “think about your current or last romantic partner when answering the questions on this page” then to “fill out the items in a manner that you feel most accurately reflects your partner’s (or ex-partner’s) personality, thoughts, and behavior.” If participants’ most recent significant relationship was with a female, they were asked to skip the gender evaluation page (i.e., the GRCS-I) and to complete the other measures. Because of the focus on women’s relationships with men, we excluded the data from the 1 participant who rated relationship satisfaction in regard to a romantic relationship with a woman.


Results Preliminary Analyses To determine whether the women from the two recruitment sites could be combined, we evaluated differences between the two groups. Specifically, multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) comparing the groups on the predictor and criterion variables indicated no significant differences between the groups. Similarly, t tests comparing age of participants in the two groups indicated that they were not statistically different from each other. Thus, data from participants from the two universities were combined. Because we asked participants to “think about your current or last romantic partner when answering the questions” and these instructions differed from the usual use of the GRCS-I, we wanted to first determine whether the factor structure of the GRCS-I as used in the current study was similar to that reported in other studies. To do so, we performed a factor analysis on the full 37 × 37 item correlation matrix using the SPSS FACTOR procedure (SPSS, 1999). Prior to conducting the factor analyses, however, we performed three tests to ensure that the correlation matrix had variation suitable for factoring. First, the determinant was nonzero, indicating that no perfect linear dependencies existed among the items (Green, 1976). Second, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was .89, which is described by Kaiser (1974) as “meritorious.” Third, Bartlett’s test of sphericity (Bartlett, 1950) was statistically significant (p < .001), indicating that the population correlation matrix is not an identity matrix. For the analysis, we specified four factors and used principal axis extraction with oblique rotations (oblimin) because of the presumed correlated nature of the factors. Results indicated that each of the four factors had eigenvalues over 1.00 and that the solution accounted for 59.07% of the variance. Examining the factor coefficients in Table 1 indicated that the items from the four subscales appeared to load separately on the four factors. Specifically, only the Success, Power, and Competition items loaded above .30 on Factor 1, with 10 of the 13 items loading highest on Factor 1 (see Table 1). The highest 10 loadings on Factor 2 were the 10 Restrictive Emotionality items. The highest eight loadings on Factor 3 were the Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men items. Finally, for Factor 4, the six Conflict Between Work and Family items loaded as six of the seven highest coefficients. As such, we concluded

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Table 1 Principal Axis Oblimin Rotated Factor Matrix, Communality, Eigenvalues, and Percentage of Total Variance for the Four Factors of the Gender Role Conflict Scale–I Item SPC37 SPC24 SPC23 SPC28 SPC34 SPC21 SPC5 SPC12 SPC8 SPC1 RE19 RE2 RE25 RE30 RE13 RE6 RE29 RE9 RE22 RE15 RAB16 RAB7 RAB33 RAB20 RAB26 RAB35 RAB3 RAB10 CBWF27 CBWF31 CBWF36 CBWF11 CBWF17 SPC32 CBWF4 SPC14 SPC18 Eigenvalue % variance

Factor 1

Factor 2

Factor 3

.81 .75 .75 .68 .67 .64 .63 .55 .47 .45

Factor 4

.36 −.87 −.79 −.78 −.77 −.76 −.70 −.68 −.66 −.59 −.55

−.38

−.81 −.81 −.77 −.77 −.70 −.65 −.53 −.51

.38 .31 .44 10.97 29.63

4.91 13.28

3.22 8.71

.89 .88 .78 .64 .63 .53 .52 .46 .46 2.76 7.46

h2 .65 .64 .60 .59 .57 .42 .47 .43 .48 .33 .76 .65 .62 .58 .56 .50 .57 .53 .47 .30 .63 .61 .63 .59 .65 .43 .41 .55 .74 .77 .68 .50 .41 .57 .26 .46 .52

Note. N ⳱ 175. Item factor loadings below .30 were not reported to improve visual inspection of the item’s placement on the four factors. The number following the scale abbreviation is the item number in the Gender Role Conflict Scale–I. h2 ⳱ communality of each item; SPC ⳱ Success, Power, and Competition items; RE ⳱ Restrictive Emotionality items; RAB ⳱ Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men items; CBWF ⳱ Conflict Between Work and Family items.

that the factor structure of the GRCS-I in our study was similar to that reported by others (e.g., Good et al., 1995). To determine whether women who were currently involved in a romantic relationship differed from

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women not currently involved in a romantic relationship on the predictor and criterion variables, we conducted t tests between the groups on these variables. Results indicated that the groups differed on Depression, t(173) ⳱ –3.29, p < .001; relationship satisfaction, t(173) ⳱ 8.75, p < .001; Success, Power, and Competition, t(173) ⳱ –2.16, p < .05; Restrictive Emotionality, t(174) ⳱ –4.96, p < .001; and Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men, t(174) ⳱ –2.65, p < .001, with the women who were not currently in a romantic relationship reporting that they were more depressed, were less satisfied in the last period of the relationship being evaluated, and judged their male partners to be more competitive and emotionally restricted with self and other men. To control statistically for these group differences, we removed the variance associated with this variable from these five variables and used the residuals as the Depression; relationship satisfaction; Success, Power, and Competition; Restrictive Emotionality; and Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men variables in the remainder of the analyses. Finally, comparing our mean values to Good et al.’s (1995) study indicated that women evaluated their current or last romantic partner as within one standard deviation of Good et al.’s sample on Success, Power, and Competition and Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men and within half a standard deviation of Good et al.’s sample on Restrictive Emotionality and Conflict Between Work and Family. Thus, women viewed their current or last romantic partner as fairly similar to the levels of gender role conflict reported by mostly Caucasian and heterosexual undergraduate males in other studies.

Primary Analyses To examine the hypothesis that women’s perceptions of their male partner’s gender role conflict would predict somatic complaints, depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and relationship satisfaction, we conducted five multiple regression analyses (see Table 2 for the means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of the predictor and criterion variables). To control for cumulative error for the five regressions, we used a Bonferroni correction to set the significance level of the analyses to .01 (i.e., .05/5 regressions). Results indicated that the gender role conflict factors entered as a block did not predict either somatization or self-esteem. However, results indicated that these gender role conflict factors were significant predictors of women’s depression (R ⳱ .33, R2 ⳱ .11), F(4, 170) ⳱ 5.19, p ⳱ .001. Examining the individual predictors indicated that higher scores for their romantic male partner on Success, Power, and Competition and lower scores on Restricted Affectionate Behavior Between Men predicted higher Depression scores on the BSI (see Table 3). That is, women perceiving that their male partners focused more on being successful, powerful, and competitive and having more affectionate relationships with other men reported greater depression. The gender role conflict factors were also significant predictors of women’s anxiety (R ⳱ .30, R2 ⳱ .09), F(4, 170) ⳱ 4.26, p ⳱ .003. Examining the individual predictors indicated that higher scores for their romantic male partner on Success, Power, and Competition and lower scores on Restricted Affectionate Behavior Between Men predicted higher

Table 2 Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations Among Women’s Psychological Well-Being, Relationship Satisfaction, and Their Male Partner’s Perceived Gender Role Conflict Scale–I Scores Variable 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Somatic Depress Anxiety Esteem Rel Satis SPC RE RAB CBWF

M

SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

3.64 6.21 6.18 22.03 14.74 48.91 32.42 25.63 19.20

3.96 5.01 4.70 5.06 4.77 14.25 12.44 8.92 7.68

— .59*** .69*** −.37*** −.09 .12 .08 −.12 .10

— .69*** −.53*** −.32*** .25** .13 −.08 .14

— −.48*** −.23** .18* .09 −.12 .16*

— .17* −.05 −.01 .12 −.13

— −.29*** −.23** −.09** −.19*

— .29*** .37*** .48***

— .37*** .20**

— .21**

—

Note. N ⳱ 175. Somatic ⳱ Brief Symptom Inventory–18 Somatization Scale; Depress ⳱ Brief Symptom Inventory–18 Depression Scale; Anxiety ⳱ Brief Symptom Inventory–18 Anxiety Scale; Esteem ⳱ self-esteem; Rel Satis ⳱ relationship satisfaction; SPC ⳱ Success, Power, and Competition; RE ⳱ Restrictive Emotionality; RAB ⳱ Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men; CBWF ⳱ Conflict Between Work and Family. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.


Table 3 Male Partner’s Perceived Gender Role Conflict as Predictors of Women’s Depression Predictor

B

SE B

␤

t

p

SPC RE RAB CBWF

0.284 0.124 −0.232 0.004

.218 .079 .081 .011

.28 .12 −.23 .03

3.24 1.56 −2.86 0.35

.001 .121 .005 .73

Note. N ⳱ 175. SPC ⳱ Success, Power, and Competition; RE ⳱ Restrictive Emotionality; RAB ⳱ Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men; CBWF ⳱ Conflict Between Work and Family.

Anxiety scores on the BSI (see Table 4). That is, women perceiving their male partners as focused more on being successful, powerful, and competitive and having more affectionate relationships with other men reported greater anxiety. Examining relationship satisfaction, results indicated that the gender role conflict factors were significant predictors of women’s satisfaction with the relationship (R ⳱ .34, R2 ⳱ .12), F(4, 170) ⳱ 5.53, p < .001. Examining the individual predictors indicated that their male partner’s lower scores on Success, Power, and Competition and lower scores on Restrictive Emotionality predicted higher relationship satisfaction scores (see Table 5). That is, participants perceiving that their male partners focused less on being successful, powerful, and competitive and being less emotionally restricted reported greater satisfaction with the romantic relationship. Finally, no multicollinearity issues appear to be evident in the regression analyses, as the condition index for the last root in each regression was .06. This is substantially below the level of .30 that Tabachnick and Fidell (2001) suggested as indicating multicollinearity.

Discussion Results from the study provide mixed support for the hypotheses. Namely, women’s perceptions of Table 4 Male Partner’s Perceived Gender Role Conflict as Predictors of Women’s Anxiety Complaints Predictor

B

SE B

␤

t

p

SPC RE RAB CBWF

0.879 0.535 −1.195 0.064

.418 .379 .389 .051

.19 .11 −.25 .10

2.10 1.41 −3.08 1.24

.037 .160 .002 .216


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Table 5 Male Partner’s Perceived Gender Role Conflict as Predictors of Women’s Satisfaction With the Romantic Relationship Predictor

B

SE B

␤

t

p

SPC RE RAB CBWF

−1.150 −0.847 0.382 −0.036

.418 .378 .388 .051

−.24 −.18 .08 −.06

−2.75 −2.23 0.99 −0.70

.007 .027 .326 .483


men’s gender role conflict did not predict somatization or self-esteem, but the gender role conflict factors were significant predictors of women’s depression, anxiety, and satisfaction with the relationship. That is, support for our hypothesis was found in that women experiencing higher levels of Success, Power, and Competition from their romantic male partners reported being more depressed and anxious and less satisfied in the relationship. In addition, women experiencing higher levels of Restrictive Emotionality from their romantic male partners also reported less satisfaction in the relationship. In regard to the broader gender role conflict literature, our findings concerning Success, Power, and Competition and Restrictive Emotionality provide some evidence for O’Neil’s (1981a, 1981b, 1982) thesis that an individual’s restrictive gender roles can have negative consequences on others. Thus, not only do men’s rigid or restrictive gender roles appear to contribute negatively to men’s well-being, as has been reported extensively elsewhere (e.g., Campbell & Snow, 1992; Cournoyer & Mahalik, 1995; Good & Mintz, 1990; Good & Wood, 1995; Hayes & Mahalik, 2000; Sharpe & Heppner, 1991; Sharpe et al., 1995), but women tend to be more depressed, anxious, and dissatisfied with relationships, depending on the extent that they experience their romantic male partner’s enactment of certain restrictive gender roles. The most consistent of the gender role conflict dimensions related to negative consequences for women (i.e., depression, anxiety, and relationship dissatisfaction) was women’s perceptions of men’s preoccupation with success, power, and competition. These results also are consistent with related research demonstrating the negative relationship between men’s preoccupation with Success, Power, and Competition on women’s lives (Kearney et al., 2004; Wade & Brittain-Powell, 2001). More specifically,

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the results from both the Kearney et al. and Wade and Brittain-Powell studies demonstrated that high levels of preoccupation with Success, Power, and Competition were related to harmful attitudes and behaviors toward women both in the workplace and in personal relationships. Collectively, these studies combined with the results of the current study provide evidence that high levels of male preoccupation with Success, Power, and Competition, as perceived by both men and women, relate to harmful consequences for women. In addition, we found that women’s perceptions of their partner’s emotional restriction predicted relationship satisfaction. Again, the direction of this relationship was consistent with what has been observed with research on men’s own self-evaluations regarding relationship satisfaction (Campbell & Snow, 1992; Sharpe & Heppner, 1991). However, in contrast to previous studies, these patterns emerged when considered from women’s perspectives of the relationship and perceptions of the man’s emotional involvement. We see these findings as also providing support for the numerous theoretical models that emphasize the importance of open emotional discussions in maintaining healthy romantic relationships (Knobloch et al., 2002). We did not, however, find support for the hypothesis that women’s perceptions of their partner’s gender role conflict would predict their somatization or self-esteem levels. Speculatively, somatization and self-esteem may be more stable characteristics for individuals that are less connected to their relational interactions as opposed to their moods (i.e., depression and anxiety) or feelings about the relationship. In addition, our findings did not support our hypothesis that as men were perceived to restrict their affectionate behavior toward other men, women would report lower levels of well-being. In fact, the opposite pattern from that initially predicted emerged, namely, as women perceived their male partners to have more intimate relationships with other men, greater depression and anxiety levels were reported. Given research findings that higher levels of Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men has been related to men’s psychological distress (e.g., Good et al., 1995; Hayes & Mahalik, 2000), we expected that women who perceived their partners as being uncomfortable in the expression of physical and emotional closeness with other men would be impacted in a negative way. As such, we were surprised that women reported being more depressed and anxious when they viewed their romantic partners as having higher levels of intimacy with other men.

Several tentative explanations can be provided for why the opposite pattern emerged in the current study. For one, women who evaluated their partners as being comfortable expressing closeness with other men may have experienced an underlying competitiveness for connection with their partners. As such, women might feel “down” or worried if they viewed their romantic male partner as not valuing their romantic relationship as much as he might value his relationships with male friends. A second speculative explanation may be that the participants had homophobic attitudes that contributed to their feeling more depressed and anxious. For example, women who perceive their partners as being physically and emotionally expressive toward other men may not feel comfortable with their partners’ interactions with other men, thus potentially leading them to feel depressed or worried. Finally, it is possible that women who see their partners being particularly expressive emotionally and physically with other men may have concerns that their chosen partner is gay and may have fears of them leaving their relationship for this reason. Although our explanations for this unexpected finding are speculative, the finding still highlights the importance of examining how men’s and women’s interactions can reciprocally contribute to stressors and/or well-being for their partners. Although further research is needed, both the process of examining women’s perceptions of their male partner’s gender roles and our preliminary results have possible relevance for clinical work with women individually or in heterosexual couples. Specifically, we see our results as supportive of extending gender role analyses in counseling and psychotherapy beyond the level of the individual client to include the gender roles of significant others. For example, it may be useful to understand how a man’s need to be successful, powerful, and competitive may lead him to be less involved in housework and childcare (see Mintz & Mahalik, 1996). This dynamic may create difficulties in a dual-career household and contribute to his female partner’s stress and depression (see Gilbert, 1994). As another example, it may be the case that his need to be powerful may contribute to his use of controlling behaviors or physical abuse leading to her experiences of anxiety and depression. Finally, consider the possibility of how his being emotionally available to her (i.e., a nontraditional masculine role) may be an important resource for her as she experiences stress in her life. Regardless of the potential scenario, we believe that our results suggest that men’s gender roles contribute to women’s experiences, thus making them useful to assess and use in clinical work with women.


Another noteworthy finding from the study was evidence that the GRCS-I appears to have good psychometric properties when adapted for use on a different population (i.e., in this case, women rating their romantic male partners). Support for the psychometric characteristics of the scale can be inferred by several components of the current study, including evidence of a similar factor structure, high internal consistency estimates for the subscale scores, and similar intercorrelations among the GRCS-I subscales to previous studies (Good et al., 1995; Good & Mintz, 1990; O’Neil et al., 1995; Moradi, Tokar, Schaub, Jome, & Serna, 2000; Walker, Tokar, & Fischer, 2000). The possible use of this measure in a context similar to the current study has both clinical and research implications. Clinically, the original GRCS-I and our adaptation may show promise within the process of couples or marital counseling. Although this should be examined empirically to determine its utility, several authors have outlined the potential contribution of measures of gender role conformity to in the counseling process (Mahalik, Locke, et al., 2003; O’Neil et al., 1995), whereas others have more generally expressed the importance of discussing gender processes with men and women (Gilbert & Scher, 1999). We believe that potentially rich explorations could emerge from the discussions of both men’s and women’s perceptions of themselves and their partners. In addition, there may be therapeutic value to be gained by women through the process of evaluating a male partner’s gender roles. More specifically, women may find it useful to consider the genderbased conflicts of their partner and how these may affect their own psychological health and experiences in the relationship. For example, in the current study, we gave participants an opportunity to comment on the experience of taking the survey. Although not meant as data for the study, it was provocative to us that common responses included, “made me think about the relationship and my boyfriend,” “interesting, not often you reflect on your relationships unless you are asked,” and “made me evaluate the types of men I date and for what reasons.” Thus, we see a number of important future research directions to be pursued. Most centrally, we think the results of the study point to the importance of examining the interactional nature of gender and men’s and women’s gender roles in future research. For example, as women’s experiences were related to men’s enactment of masculinity in this study, we would anticipate that (a) men’s experiences are likely related to women’s enactment of femininity, (b) women’s experiences are related to other women’s

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enactment of femininity, and (c) men’s experiences are affected by other men’s enactment of masculinity (as reported in DeFranc & Mahalik, 2002). In addition, further research may want to also measure the extent to which women perceive the GRCS-I dimensions to be problematic to themselves and the relationship. This might be achieved by asking respondents to assess the GRCS-I items and an additional item that specifically assesses the extent to which this trait has been problematic and/or conflictual. As there has been increased discussion of the extent to which the GRCS-I measures conflict (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1993; Liu, Rochlen, & Mohr, 2003), such data might provide useful information to further the construct validity of the GRCS-I and conceptual model (O’Neil et al., 1995). Additional research should also address the limitations to the study, including the use of the mostly Caucasian, unmarried, and heterosexual sample. As culture and race contribute to the enactment of gender roles (e.g., Lazur & Majors, 1995), unmarried relationships have very different dynamics and commitments from married relationships, and because homosexual relationships occur in a heterosexist society, it is likely that the variables examined in this study would operate differently in other populations. Hence, future research may want to use similar methodology in studying racial minority couples, lesbian and gay couples, as well as married couples. In addition, the current study did not investigate the gender role identity of the women in the sample. As measures of female gender role identity may further elucidate how masculine and feminine roles interact with each other and relate to psychological wellbeing, future studies may want to include measures of women’s gender roles. Finally, to extend the generalizability of the findings, researchers should consider using samples of women from more diverse age groups and geographical settings.

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Received September 29, 2003 Revision received December 10, 2003 Accepted December 23, 2003 䡲