This article describes the construction of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI), and 5 studies that examined its psychometric properties. Factor analysis indicated 11 distinct factors: Winning, Emotional Control, Risk-Taking, Violence, Dominance, Playboy, Self-Reliance, Primacy of Work, Power Over Women, Disdain for Homosexuals, and Pursuit of Status. Results from Studies 2-5 indicated that the CMNI had strong internal consistency estimates and good differential validity comparing men with women and groups of men on healthrelated questions; all of the CMNI subscales were significantly and positively related to other masculinity-related measures, with several subscales being related significantly and positively to psychological distress, social dominance, aggression, and the desire to be more muscular, and significantly and negatively to attitudes toward psychological help seeking and social desirability; and CMNI scores had high test-retest estimates for a 2-3 week period.

Given that gender roles are increasingly viewed as salient in clinical work with men, this article describes a process of exploring masculine gender roles with male clients in therapy by using the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI). Specifically, this article (a) discusses how men's degree of conformity to masculine norms may be connected to a variety of benefits and costs, (b) describes the CMNI as a tool that can be used to explore men's degree of conformity to masculine norms, (c) describes a process by which to use the CMNI to explore the relevance of men's masculine selves to their presenting concerns, and (d) illustrates the process with a case example. As such, the paper is intended to provide a systematic procedure for clinicians working with men who want to explore the benefits and costs that both conformity, and nonconformity, to specific masculinity norms brings for male clients.

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