Higher Levels of Masculine Gender Role Stress in Masculine than in Feminine Nations

Linking National Culture With National Differences in MGRS

Copenhaver and Eisler (1996) have pointed out that becoming masculine with respect to one’s thoughts, expression of one’s feelings, and behavioral repertoires requires extensive sociocultural education. The development of masculinity is promoted by the developing man’s interaction with adult role models, his peers, and major societal institutions. In their view, many masculine beliefs and behaviors have cultural roots.

Hofstede (1998, p. 5) defines “culture” (or “mental software”) as broad, collective patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting that have important consequences for the functioning of societies, of groups within those societies, and of individual members of such groups. Thus, Hofstede (2001, p. 9) treats culture as the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another. This programming entails that a country’s norms are transferred to the young child in the family, are further developed and confirmed in schools, at universities, in the workplace, in political life, and even in the prevailing religious, philosophical, and scientific ideas (Hofstede, 1998, pp. 17-18).

Hofstede (1980) distinguished between masculine and feminine societies. At the national level, Masculinity and Femininity refer to the dominant gender role patterns in the vast majority of both traditional and modern societies: the patterns of male assertiveness and female nurturance (Hofstede, 1980, p. 277; Hofstede, 2001, p. 284). In Hofstede’s terms (2001, p. 297), Masculinity stands for a society in which gender roles are clearly distinct: Men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success, whereas women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life. Femininity stands for a society in which gender roles overlap: Both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.

Empirical data with country-level indices have shown in relation to gender roles that in feminine countries men are allowed to be gentle, feminine, and weak, whereas in masculine ones women should be gentle and feminine and nobody should be weak. In feminine countries, macho behavior (i.e., ostentatious manliness) is ridiculed, whereas in masculine ones machismo in men, and marianismo (i.e., a combination of near saintliness, submissiveness, and frigidity) or hembrismo (i.e., extreme femininity, passivity, and self-abnegation) in women are propagated (Hofstede, 2001, p. 312).

Thus, in masculine (“tough”) societies, men are socialized and mentally programmed to be more skilful, performance-oriented (in all areas of life), competitive, successful, assertive, aggressive, macho and sex-typed, yet, perhaps by implication, also more fearful of expressing soft emotions than men in feminine (“tender”) societies. This leads to the first hypothesis, namely that masculine countries would, on average, report more masculine gender role stress since noncompliance to sex-typed behavior would induce greater threat, fear or distress due to the relevant gender roles being cognitively more strongly linked with the need for achievement, for excelling, for winning and for other positive reinforcements, and hence with the fear of failure and of punishment, than would be the case in feminine countries.

Accordingly, the first aim of the present study was to test the prediction that scores on Hofstede’s MAS dimension would correlate positively with national MGRS scores. In testing this hypothesis, the level of stress already present in a society was also taken into account. This was done by using the scores on a second dimension also derived by Hofstede termed uncertainty avoidance. Hofstede (2001, p. 161) described his uncertainty avoidance index (UAI), which is positively associated with neuroticism-anxiety, as a measure of the extent to which members of a society feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations.

National Instrumentality and National Differences in MGRS

A second aim of the present study was to determine the differential capabilities of Hofstede’s MAS dimension and the gender role-related personality trait of masculinity to predict MGRS. Masculinity is oftentimes also referred to as instrumentality (e.g., Hermann & Betz, 2004) and was measured with the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1981b). The BSRI is based on a conceptualization of the traditionally sex-typed person as someone who is highly attuned to cultural definitions of sex-appropriate behaviors and who uses such definitions as the ideal standard against which her or his own behavior is to be evaluated. In this view (Bem, 1974, 1981b), the traditionally sex-typed person is motivated to keep her or his behavior consistent with an idealized image of masculinity or femininity, a goal that (s)he presumably accomplishes both by selecting behaviors and attributes that enhance that image and by avoiding those that violate it. Thus, the BSRI contains items that were chosen on the basis of cultural definitions of sex-typed social desirability. However, the BSRI is not a measure of gender role-related stress. At the individual level, MGRS has been shown, in line with prediction, to be distinct from, that is, uncorrelated or only very lowly associated with, masculinity (Arrindell et al., 1993; Eisler & Skidmore, 1987; van Well, Kolk, & Arrindell, 2005). Moreover, at the country level, MAS has been demonstrated to be unrelated to the masculine gender role (Best & Williams, 1998). Thus, the joint and independent contributions of Hofstede’s MAS and country-level masculine gender role scores in predicting country-level MGRS scores were also assessed. Several theories relating gender role orientation to mental and physical health have been summarized in the literature (see Davidson-Katz, 1991). The theory that has accumulated the most empirical support is the “masculinity hypothesis.” It proposes that the more masculine one is, the healthier one will be. Paralleling the significantly negative associations that have been reported at the individual level between the masculine gender role and measures of negative affect (e.g., Whitley, 1984), it was anticipated that, at the country level, high masculine gender role scores as assessed with the BSRI would predict significantly lower levels of MGRS. To avoid semantic and conceptual confusions between Hofstede’s MASculinity and Bem’s masculinity dimensions, the latter will henceforth be referred to as instrumentality.

To counteract the potential tendency of respondents to overreport good or underreport bad behavior, which could interfere with the interpretation of average tendencies on MGRS and BSRI, the part played by cross-national differences in Lie-Social Desirability responses on the outcome of hypothesis testing was also addressed.

Method

Results

Initial Analyses

There were systematic (overall) differences between the national samples on gender (χ ² [12] = 127.97, p < .001) and age (F [12, 6407] = 38.50, p < .001). By using the approach of statistical control, these variables were treated as covariates in separate analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) and controlled for in order to obtain corrected mean MGRS, Instrumentality and Lie scores for each national sample (e.g., Tatsuoka, 1971). In doing so, “country” served as the independent variable and the MGRS, Instrumentality and Lie dimensions as dependent variables in separate ANCOVAs. For each ANCOVA, the joint effects of the covariates were statistically significant (p < .01). However, corresponding observed and adjusted scores were deemed interchangeable as they were very closely to unity associated with one another, r’s (12) = .99, p’s < .01. Yet, for counteracting the influence of the oversampling of women in several countries, it was deemed more appropriate to use the corrected rather than the observed national scores when conducting the main analyses.

Table 1 gives the Hofstede MAS and UAI scores, by nation. It also shows the means for the observed MGRS, Bem’s Instrumentality and Lie scores, by nation. (A survey of the corrected means is available upon request.) Internal consistency reliabilities (Cronbach’s αs) were calculated for each of the individual scales for each national sample. These are also reported in Table 1 (between parentheses) where it will be seen that both the MGRS and Bem’s Instrumentality subscale showed very acceptable levels of internal consistency (.70-.80s) that could be given the qualification fair to good (Cicchetti, 1994). The Lie scale, however, obtained lower levels of internal consistency, in spite of the observation that the mean inter-item correlations (not shown in the Table) across all scales indicated (range: .15-.27) that we are dealing with fairly homogeneous sets of items. Briggs and Cheek (1986) have pointed out that values of the mean interitem r smaller than .10 would indicate that we would be dealing with a heterogeneous set of items.

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Table 1.

Survey of National Scores on Hofstede’s Masculinity (MAS) and Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), and Masculine Gender Role Stress (MGRS), Bem’s Instrumentality and Lie Scales (Cronbach’s αs for MGRS, Bem’s Instrumentality and Lie Scales Appear Between Parentheses).

Nation	MAS	UAI	MGRS	Bem’s instrumentality	Lie
			M	M	M
Australia	61	51	31.66 (.83)	46.95 (.87)	2.03 (.59)
Croatia	40	80	36.03 (.81)	42.42 (.84)	2.36 (.64)
Germany	66	65	33.28 (.84)	43.22 (.85)	2.09 (.56)
Great Britain	66	35	32.10 (.78)	45.15 (.88)	1.98 (.53)
Greece	57	112	35.84 (.75)	45.04 (.86)	2.77 (.67)
Guatemala	37	101	33.01 (.87)	48.91 (.83)	2.83 (.69)
Hungary	88	82	33.80 (.75)	44.70 (.84)	3.14 (.61)
Italy	70	75	31.30 (.81)	45.90 (.81)	3.25 (.61)
Japan	95	92	39.02 (.76)	35.39 (.75)	2.35 (.56)
The Netherlands	14	53	26.70 (.81)	43.72 (.82)	2.68 (.53)
Spain	42	86	31.82 (.87)	44.90 (.78)	2.49 (.64)
Sweden	5	29	29.78 (.74)	44.97 (.85)	1.70 (.52)
Venezuela	73	76	32.51 (.82)	50.46 (.80)	3.23 (.68)
M	54.92	72.08	32.83	44.75	2.53
SD	26.49	24.66	3.04	3.57	.50
Range	5-95 a	8-112 a	0-75	10-70	0-6

a

Based on values calculated by Hofstede (2001) for 50 countries and three regions. The respective means (and SDs) for 50 nations and three regions are 49 (18) for MAS and 65 (24) for UAI (Hofstede, 2001).

Main Analyses

Table 2 gives the intercorrelations between the Hofstede MAS and UAI dimensions and the corrected (i.e., adjusted for the eventual influences of cross-national differences in the distributions of gender and age) country-level scores on the MGRS, Bem’s Instrumentality and Lie scales.

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Table 2.

Intercorrelations Between the Hofstede Dimensions (MAS and UAI) and Adjusted Masculine Gender Role Stress (MGRS), Bem’s Instrumentality and Lie Scale Scores.

Measure	MAS	UAI	MGRS	Bem’s instrumentality	Lie
1 Hofstede’s masculinity (MAS)	–	.36	.64**	−.27	.34
2 Uncertainty avoidance index (UAI)		–	.59*	−.10	.63**
3 Masculine gender role stress (MGRS)			–	−.57*	.03
4 Bem’s instrumentality				–	.31
5 Lie					–

n = 13 countries

For purposes of interpretation, Cohen (1992) considers an absolute value of r = .10 as “small,” r = .30 as “medium,” and r = .50 as “large.”

*

p ≤ 0.05. **p ≤ 0.01 (one-tailed).

It will be seen that, in line with prediction, Hofstede’s MAS index correlated positively with MGRS, meaning that the more masculine countries had higher MGRS scores. Hofstede’s UAI was also positively associated with MGRS, even after holding constant Lie scores which were significantly positively associated with MGRS scores, pr (10) = .73, p < .01 (partial correlations are not shown in the Table). Thus, countries with high scores on anxiety-emotionality were also the countries with high MGRS scores. When MAS was correlated with MGRS, taking into account the amount of stress already present in society, that is, partialling out UAI scores, the relevant association dropped only slightly, maintained its positive sign and remained statistically significant, pr (10) = .56, p < .05. In line with Best and Williams (1998), Hofstede’s MAS was uncorrelated with country-level scores on Bem’s Instrumentality scale. At the country level, Hofstede’s MAS, Bem’s Instrumentality and MGRS scores were all uncorrelated with Lie scores.

Table 3 gives a summary of the results of a hierarchical regression analysis at the country level of Bem’s Instrumentality and Hofstede’s MAS scores entered at step 1 and 2, respectively, on MGRS scores. It will be seen that, in line with prediction, both country-level Instrumentality and Hofstede’s MAS scores were shown to independently predict country-level MGRS scores. The standardized regression coefficients had opposite signs. Thus, lower country-level scores on Bem’s Instrumentality scale and higher ones on Hofstede’s MAS were predictive of higher country-level MGRS scores. Hofstede’s MAS, which was included at step 2, succeeded in contributing a significant increment to the proportion of variance beyond what had already been accounted for by Bem’s Instrumentality score higher up in the hierarchy (step 1), multiple R = .76, adjusted R² = .49 at step 2. Expressed in terms of f ² (Cohen, 1992), this set of two predictors provided findings reflecting a large effect size, .96.

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Table 3.

Summary of Hierarchical Regression Analysis of Masculine Gender Role Stress (MGRS) Scores on Bem’s Instrumentality and Hofstede’s Masculinity (MAS) Scores (n = 13 Countries).

Variable	B	SE B	β
Step 1
Bem’s instrumentality	−.35	.18	−.43*
Step 2
Hofstede’s MAS	.06	.02	.52*

Note: *p < .05. Multiple R = .76, R² = .57; adjusted R² = .49 at step 2; R² = .25 for step 2 (p < .05); pr = .61 at step 2.

Discussion

This is the first study on MGRS carried out at the country level. In agreement with predictions, it was found that societies that put strong emphasis on men being committed to culturally accepted models of masculinity (i.e., nations with high Hofstede MASculinity scores) had higher mean national levels of MGRS than those that put less emphasis on such commitment (i.e., nations with low national MAS scores). Thus, “tough” (high MAS) societies reported higher levels of MGRS than “soft” (low MAS) societies. In addition, in line with the individual level masculinity hypothesis, higher levels of country-level instrumentality (as measured with Bem’s BSRI) predicted, independent of MAS scores, lower country levels of MGRS.

In view of the empirical findings at the individual level that link MGRS with poor mental and physical health and detrimental health habits (for a survey, see Eisler, 1995) and those at the country level showing that the incidence and morbidity rates for a number of disease processes (e.g., cardiovascular diseases, respiratory and immune system unwellness) differ considerably across different countries (see Matsumoto & Fletcher, 1996), one may wonder if, or even speculate that, country-level MGRS may be among the many predictors (diet, lifestyle, and the pace of life may be other contributing factors, that incidentally may also be related to MGRS) that could contribute to cross-national differences in physical health and disease.

At the individual level, the MGRS scale has been shown to be distinct from instrumentality (Eisler, 1995, p. 215), yet at the country level, we found a negative, large effect-sized r between both measures (see Table 2). However, a closer look at Table 2 clearly indicates that, at the country level, we are still dealing with separable constructs as they evidenced distinct patterns of associations with other measures (MAS, UAI, and Lie), in magnitude, in sign, or in statistical significance.

One important limitation of the present study is that its analyses were based on only 13 national samples. This number is smaller than 10% of the worlds’ total sample of nations. In addition, the national samples used were not randomly drawn from the total sample of nations in the world. Thus, further studies with a far more larger number of randomly drawn national samples are needed to establish the stability of the present findings.

In conclusion, without wanting to imply any causality, the present findings provide support at the country level for the stance that societies with a dominant cultural requirement that men adhere to several aspects of culturally approved masculine ideology and role behavior (i.e., tough societies as defined by Hofstede) may have dysfunctional health consequences. The argument for this is that tough societies would run the risk of inducing high levels of MGRS with adverse mental and physical health consequences in their average inhabitants (e.g., Eisler, 1990a, 1995; Eisler & Blalock, 1991), more so than would be the case in soft societies. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that tough societies (i.e., those with high Hofstede MAS scores) are not necessarily also the ones with high country scores on Bem’s Instrumentality scale which was uncorrelated with Hofstede’s MAS —— a replication of Best and Williams (1998), although both measures, independently from one another, predicted country-level MGRS scores with opposing signs.

Some of the health-related intervention strategies for men that are described in Eisler (1990b) and Copenhaver and Eisler (1996), that is, consciousness raising, modeling self-disclosure, and assignments in “un-masculinity”, may need to be implemented on a large scale in societies with (very) high scores on Hofstede’s MAS dimension in order to bring down or prevent MGRS and to ameliorate some of the male gender role related obstacles that seem to prevent men from fully utilizing health-related services. Eisler (1990b) notes that such therapeutic procedures might better help men engage in counseling, better than traditional psychological services that have been conceptualized without adequate consideration of socialized masculine attitudes, values, and behavior proscriptions which prohibit men from seeking counseling when in need.

In Eisler’s view, masculine values also discourage men from playing the traditional client role should they find themselves in psychological treatment; men are stressed by the very nature of traditional counseling, such as having to express feelings or to reveal doubts about their ability to manage their personal affairs, or to compete successfully at work. The present findings show that the tougher the society, the greater the likelihood that the average man will experience difficulties with situations that are appraised as feminine (e.g., the expression of tender emotions, help-seeking behavior), and/or as threatening to male control (e.g., subordination to women), or competence (e.g., physical, work or sexual performance). Living in tough societies coincides with high levels of MGRS in their average inhabitants.