Man-Up When Down — Gender-Specific Coping With Life Stressors

Abstract: Socialization into gender roles shapes the perception of the world from an early age which might, amongst others, constrain how one handles challenging situations. Therefore, this research aimed at investigating gender-specific coping mechanisms following life stressors in a nonclinical sample. The present study first hypothesized that women are more likely than men to seek emotional social support. A second hypothesis concerned that men are more likely than women to use substances, in line with the self-medication hypothesis. The third hypothesis maintained that those who embrace stereotypical gender roles implicitly manifest more extreme coping mechanism and that this implicit association variable proves better than the original gender variable at predicting coping. In total, 132 participants completed an online questionnaire including the Life Stressor Checklist–Revised, the COPE Inventory, an experimental design of the Implicit Association Test as well as an explicit measure, both to examine the gender self-concept. The results supported that men tended to be less likely to seek social support and more likely to use substances than women. Contrary to predictions of the third hypothesis, a stereotypically masculine or feminine self-concept only predicted coping with social support but not with substance use. Hence, this implicit variable was a superior predictor to gender with social support whereas the reversed pattern emerged for substance use. These findings could lead to an increased consideration of implicit gender stereotypes to unveil their hidden toxic influence on mental health.