Masculine discrepancy stress, substance use, assault and injury in a survey of US men

Abstract

To understand and ultimately prevent injury and behavioural health outcomes associated with masculinity, we assessed the influence of masculine discrepancy stress (stress that occurs when men perceive themselves as falling short of the traditional gender norms) on the propensity to engage in stereotypically masculine behaviours (eg, substance use, risk taking and violence) as a means of demonstrating masculinity. Six-hundred men from the USA were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) online data collection site to complete surveys assessing self-perceptions of gender role discrepancy and consequent discrepancy stress, substance use/abuse, driving while intoxicated (DWI) and violent assaults. Negative binomial regression analyses indicated significant interactive effects wherein men high on gender role discrepancy and attendant discrepancy stress reported significantly more assaults with a weapon (B=1.01; SE=0.63; IRR=2.74; p=0.05) and assaults causing injury (B=1.01; SE=0.51; IRR=2.74; p<0.05). There was no association of discrepancy stress to substance abuse, but there was a protective effect of gender role discrepancy for DWI among men low on discrepancy stress (B=−1.19, SE=0.48; IRR=0.30; p=0.01). These findings suggest that gender role discrepancy and associated discrepancy stress, in particular, represent important injury risk factors and that prevention of discrepancy stress may prevent acts of violence with the greatest consequences and costs to the victim, offender and society.

“You Never Know What Could Happen”: Women’s Perspectives of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis in the Context of Recent Intimate Partner Violence

“…These scripts indicate that women have "few sexual needs" and "view sex as synonymous with love," whereas men have "strong sexual needs" and "are obsessed with sex." Male perpetrators of IPV have a strong adherence to sexual cultural scripts (Willie, Khondkaryan, Callands, & Kershaw, 2018c) and traditional masculine norms (Reidy, Berke, Gentile, & Zeichner, 2015;Santana, Raj, Decker, La Marche, & Silverman, 2006), which could make them believe that their sexual infidelity is legitimate. For women experiencing IPV, accusations of sexual infidelity could be a trigger for a violent event (Buss & Duntley, 2014;Nemeth, Bonomi, Lee, & Ludwin, 2012).…”

Risk factors associated with knife-crime in United Kingdom among young people aged 10-24 years: A systematic review.

“…Comparisons of a variety of groups, rather than investigating one speci c cohort of gang members, allows for differences to be evaluated. As neither studies identi ed a difference between the ethnicity of groups divided by level of gang involvement, this suggests no association with gang violence (24,33) .…”

“…All four studies investigating age found a positive association between knife crime and adolescence (21,26,30,32) . compared to other age groups, is positively associated with being in a gang (23,26,33) . Densley et al (WOE=M) interviewed 69 self-described gang members, recruited from six London boroughs experiencing high levels of socioeconomic deprivation, with an age range of 13-34 (mean age 20).…”

“…Three studies described violence and weapon carrying as a method of gaining status, power, and masculinity (19,31,33) . For example, Barlas et al (WOE=H) found young people explained the most common reasons for weapon carrying were: 'for looking cool', 'other people's respect', 'feeling powerful', and 'peer admiration' (31) .…”

Man's Heaviest Burden: A Review of Contemporary Paradigms and New Directions for Understanding and Preventing Masculine Aggression

“…Additionally, in a sample of adolescent boys, discrepancy stress positively predicted a perpetration of sexual violence (Reidy, Smith‐Darden, Cortina, Kernsmith, & Kernsmith, ). Outside the confines of romantic relationships, finally, participants higher in discrepancy stress had a higher lifetime frequency of engagement in assaults with a weapon and assaults causing injury (Reidy, Berke, Gentile, & Zeichner, ). These results meaningfully buttress the validity of masculine discrepancy stress as a construct that conforms to the assumptions of the Gender Role Strain Paradigm (Pleck, ), finding perceptions of falling short of male gender role norms to be both stressful and predictive of violence.…”