“I Don’t Need Help”: Gender Differences in how Gender Stereotypes Predict Help-Seeking

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2017

Publication Title

Sex Roles

Volume

76

Issue

2018-01-02

First page number:

27

Last page number:

39

Abstract

Although self-report and correlational studies suggest that gender stereotypes are related to men’s health behavior, particularly in relation to seeking help, there is minimal research that has tested this hypothesis experimentally. The present study examined how two stereotype pathways, personally endorsed gender stereotypes and gender stereotyped attitudes, predicted help-seeking behavior among U.S. undergraduate women (n = 68) and men (n = 72) when they worked on challenging puzzles and recalled previous health help-seeking behavior for physical or psychological problems. Results revealed gender and domain differences in how the two pathways predicted help-seeking. For the puzzle tasks, both attitudinally and personally endorsed gender stereotypes predicted men’s help-seeking, whereas only personally endorsed gender stereotypes predicted women’s help-seeking. For recalled health behaviors, personally endorsed gender stereotypes predicted men’s help-seeking, whereas gender stereotypes did not predict women’s help-seeking. The gender and domain differences in how personal and attitudinal gender stereotypes predicted help-seeking are important to consider when designing interventions to increase help-seeking. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Language

english

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