Ten Years of Psychological Research on Men and Masculinity in the United States: Dominant Methodological Trends

Abstract

The psychological study of men and masculinity is rapidly growing. Despite this growth, few attempts have been made to critically evaluate progress in the field, and no studies to date have analyzed methodological trends in empirical research on men and masculinity. The purpose of this study was to identify the dominant trends in psychological research on men and masculinity published in the United States between 1995 and 2004. One hundred seventy-eight articles were selected and coded on 21 dimensions. Descriptive statistics revealed that quantitative, correlational, and nonobservational methods dominate research in this field. Further, the inclusion of racial/ethnic minorities was found to be quite low and researchers tended to rely on convenience samples of undergraduates. It also appears that there was little variety in the masculinity measures used. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.Keywords Masculinity . Men . Methodology . Research . ReviewResearch in the field of men and masculinity is new and rapidly growing in the United States. In the last 6 years, several journals have been founded that are dedicated to the study of men and masculinity (Smiler, 2004). In addition, the last 10 years have shown increased representation of men and masculinity researchers in the American Psychological Association and the start of an APA division dedicated to the psychological study of men and masculinity. The psychology of men has also become increasingly visible in the American popular media, with such publications as the New York Times and Newsweek covering stories about men and depression, men's health, and other related topics. Finally, the larger field of mental health has gained awareness of the significance of studying the psychology of men and masculinity. For example, the National Institute of Mental Health has acknowledged the importance of this field by introducing a campaign called "Real Men, Real Depression" that seeks to educate people about men's suffering. In short, the last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the amount of social scientific theory and empirical research focused on the psychology of men and masculinity.Despite increased interest in the psychology of men and masculinity, few comprehensive reviews have been pubto our knowledge there have been no reviews and critiques of methodological trends in particular. The purpose of the current article is to review methodological trends in psychological research on men and masculinity published in major US journals over the last 10 years. We chose to focus our review on research published in major US journals for several reasons. First, space constraints required narrowing the boundaries of the review. Second, and more importantly, research published in these outlets is likely to reflect the dominant methodological and conceptual trends in psychology more broadly, and these trends in turn shape the way research on men and masculinity is conceptualized and carried out. Third, dominant methodologies in any field tend to...

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