Addressing Ethical Issues in Studying Men’s Traumatic Stress

Abstract

Like many human experiences, traumatic stress is highly gendered. Over the past several decades, a sub-stantial number of empirical studies have explored ethical issues in traumatic stress research. However, these studies have typically reported female samples or failed to account for the influence of gender in their analyses of mixed-sex samples. By extension, ethical issues that are relevant to male participants in traumatic stress research are poorly understood. After briefly exploring why the vulnerabilities of male participants are under-explored in traumatic stress research, this article highlights many ethical issues that are important to address when men participate in traumatic stress research, concluding with some sugges-tions for how these might be taken up to advance the field.

Masculine norms and mental health of African men: what can psychology do?

“…Although early research (e.g., Fleming and Agnew-Brune, 2015 ; Odimegwu and Okemgbo, 2008 ; Odimegwu et al., 2013 ) have shifted the masculinity and health debate to understanding its implication to men's health, there are challenges regarding whether it is ethical to conduct masculine researches when participants (e.g. men) are unlikely to participate in such research and if the use of deception during such research could be justified ( Affleck et al., 2020 ). There are also challenges in trying to define mental health within the Africa culture due to cultural complexities ( Odimegwu et al., 2013 ).…”

Gender and intersecting vulnerabilities on the mental health unit: Rethinking the dilemma

“…Many papers examine the experiences of women (6, 7,11,12,15,18,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46], while the perspectives of men are notably absent in much of the qualitative research. This can be partially explained in terms of a phenomenon of "concealment" whereby men are more likely to mask indicators of vulnerability, ultimately lending to outsiders being "blinded" to male trauma experiences (47). Men are, in this way, often excluded from status as a vulnerable population.…”