Defines psychological disorders for men and explain the major approaches to classifying them.

Men and Health

1. Definition and Classification
•Psychological disorder: A persistent disruption or
disturbance of thought, emotion, or behavior that
causes significant distress or impairment in functioning.
•Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM): A resource text that categorizes
disorders based on their primary symptom.
•International Classification of Diseases and
Related Health Problems (ICD): Published by the
World Health Organization (WHO) and is similar to the
DSM.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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2. Definition and Classification
•Internalizing disorders: Combines the depressive
and anxiety disorders together.
•Externalizing disorders: Antisocial, conduct,
substance use, and impulsivity-related disorders into
another group.
•Transdiagnostic approach: Assumes that most
psychological disorders are actually different
manifestations of a few core, underlying dimensions.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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3. Sex Differences in
Internalizing Disorders
•Women show higher prevalence rates than men do for
internalizing disorders while men have higher
prevalence rates than women do for externalizing
disorders.
•Of these disorders, only bipolar disorder does not show
a consistent sex difference.
•The remaining internalizing disorders have sex
differences that range from small (d = −0.14) to
medium (d = −0.53) in size.
•Many factors likely contribute to these sex differences.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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4. Factors in Internalizing Disorders
•Gender intensification hypothesis: The pressure to
adopt sex-typed traits and behavior intensifies during
adolescence as children go through puberty and
prepare for adulthood.
•Certain coping styles can contribute to sex differences,
for example, the response styles theory focuses on
rumination (passively and persistently focusing
attention on one’s negative mood).
•Rumination correlates with depression, social phobia,
PTSD, and generalized anxiety disorder.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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5. Factors in Internalizing Disorders
•The expansion hypothesis: occupying multiple social
roles can buffer against distress by giving meaning and
social connectedness.
•Predicts that women become depressed more
frequently than men because traditional sex-based
labor divisions restrict them to a relatively small
number of home-based roles.
•Another approach asks if widespread devaluing of
female-type labor contributes to women’s high rates of
depression.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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6. Factors in Internalizing Disorders
•Sexual abuse in childhood predicts adult depression
regardless of victims’ sex.
•Neuroticism: chronic tendency to experience negative
emotions - correlates very strongly with internalizing
disorders; and women across cultures score higher in
neuroticism than men.
•Female sex hormones enhance the sensitivity of the
stress response and heighten young women’s
vulnerability to the long-term effects of stress.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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7. Factors in Externalizing Disorders
•Externalizing disorders are characterized by deficits in
impulse control; patterns of aggression, violence, or
criminality; and substance abuse.
•Boys may learn to express negative emotions through
angry outbursts instead of sad withdrawal.
•Parents tend to discipline boys and girls differently,
using harsher strategies with sons than daughters.
•Men more often distract themselves or cope with stress
via alcohol or drugs.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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8. Factors in Externalizing Disorders
•Impulsivity: Consists of traits such as sensation
seeking, novelty seeking, and risk taking.
•Effortful control consists of persistence, focus, and
inhibitory control.
•Externalizing disorders correlate with high levels of
impulsivity and low levels of effortful control.
•Callous-unemotional (CU) traits: Low levels of
empathy, guilt, and warmth and these tendencies
underlie aggression, criminal behavior.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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9. Factors in Externalizing Disorders
•The prefrontal cortex (PFC): Is affected by prenatal
testosterone and may play a role in the development of
externalizing conditions (ADHD and substance
disorders).
•Dopamine (DA): A neurotransmitter involved in
feelings of reward and control of voluntary movement,
may also contribute to sex differences in externalizing
tendencies.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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10. Eating and Body Image Disorders
•Eating disorders: Serious medical conditions that
affect both psychological and physical health.
•Anorexia nervosa: Correlates with the highest
mortality rate of all mental illnesses.
•Girls/women experience eating disorders more than
are boys/men; certain populations are more prone
(more in western societies, adolescent and young adult
women as opposed to older women); rates of eating
disorders are higher among transgender people; gay
men have higher rates; and athletes in aesthetic
sports show elevated rates.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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11. Eating and Body Image Disorders
•Risk factors for eating disorders: troubled relationships
with parents, early sexual abuse, low self-esteem,
perfectionism, chronic pressure to be slim, and body
dissatisfaction.
•Objectification theory: Being raised within a
sociocultural context that routinely objectifies and
sexualizes the female body has consequences for
female mental health.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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12. Eating and Body Image Disorders
•Teaches girls and women to internalize an outsider’s
perspective on their physical selves, resulting in a
chronic preoccupation with their appearance.
•Self-objectification increases young women’s risk for
body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, depression, and
substance use problems.
•Correlational research links self-objectification to higher
levels of eating disorder symptoms, lower self-esteem,
more depressive symptoms, and reduced
psychological well-being.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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13. Eating and Body Image Disorders
•Teaches girls and women to internalize an outsider’s
perspective on their physical selves, resulting in a
chronic preoccupation with their appearance.
•Self-objectification increases young women’s risk for
body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, depression, and
substance use problems.
•Correlational research links self-objectification to higher
levels of eating disorder symptoms, lower self-esteem,
more depressive symptoms, and reduced
psychological well-being.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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14. Eating and Body Image Disorders
•Social comparisons theory: self-objectification leads
women to compare their bodies with their peers’ bodies
and social comparisons then predict body shame and
predicts eating disorder symptoms.
•Young Western women who use more social media,
especially social network sites and magazines, report
higher self-objectification.
•Media depictions of women’s bodies vary widely across
cultures, reflecting differences in religion, values,
gender equality, and economic and political systems.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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15. Eating and Body Image Disorders
•Not all researchers agree that exposure to thin,
idealized images of women affects body image and
eating disorders.
•One expert argues that other factors, such as, genes,
also influence eating disorders and concluded that
only some women with pre-existing body
dissatisfaction and/or genetic tendencies toward eating
disorders, suffer negative consequences of exposure
to media.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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16. Eating and Body Image Disorders
•White women were more likely than Black, Latina, and
Asian American women to develop anorexia; rates of
bulimia and binge eating disorder were comparable
across racial and ethnic groups.
•Among women of color, having a stronger ethnic
identity (a sense of connectedness to one’s racial or
ethnic group) weakens the link between thin ideal
internalization and eating pathology.
•The links between risk factors and eating pathology
among women of color are complex, and more
research is needed.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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17. Eating and Body Image Disorders
•Transgender people are vulnerable to developing
eating disorders.
•Transmen and transwomen have higher levels of body
dissatisfaction and more disordered eating behaviors
than their cisgender peers.
•Body satisfaction often increases among transgender
individuals after they undergo genital reconstructive
surgery or hormone treatments.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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18. Eating and Body Image Disorders
•Muscle dysmorphia: A body image disorder
characterized by an obsessive preoccupation with
increasing one’s muscularity and maintaining low body
fat (sometimes referred to as “bigorexia), and affects
men almost exclusively.
•Self-objectified gay men score higher in body shame
than those who were not self-objectified.
•The root of body image problems may be
objectification by the male gaze (a voyeuristic and
sexual mode of viewing others that reflects men’s
patriarchal power).
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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19. Gender Minority Statuses
•Stressors of victimization and discrimination
disproportionately affect LGBT people.
•Sexual minority and gender-nonconforming youths and
adults report more depressive symptoms, suicidality,
anxiety and PTSD symptoms, and substance use
disorders.
•Strong, high-quality parent–child relationships,
characterized by connectedness, support, and warmth,
can buffer sexual and gender minority youths from the
negative consequences of sexual minority stress.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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20. Gender Minority Statuses
•Young people become homeless for a variety of
reasons: parental neglect, abuse, and family conflict.
•LGBT youth are especially likely to be evicted by
parents or run away to escape abuse.
•Homeless LGBT youths suffer more depression,
anxiety, conduct problems, and substance use
problems.
•LGBT youths living in neighborhoods with higher rates
of violent LGBT hate crimes (hostile environment), had
more suicidal ideation and attempted suicides.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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21. Gender Minority Statuses
•Internalized homophobia: Self-directed antigay
attitudes held by sexual minority persons.
•Internalized transphobia: Self-directed anti-
transgender attitudes held by transgender people.
•Sexual minority individuals who occupy more than one
disadvantaged group may suffer even greater levels of
internalized stigma.
•Double stigma: Occupying more than one stigmatized
group.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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22. Mental Health Help-Seeking
•Men are less likely to seek help for mental health
problems than women
•This sex difference depends on a couple of factors:
−the type of help provider
−the type of symptoms that people experience
•Although men with mental health problems seek less
help than women, women also underutilize
professional services.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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23. Mental Health Help-Seeking
•Men who conform more strongly to male role norms
and endorse more traditional gender ideologies, tend to
hold more negative attitudes toward seeking mental
health help.
•The environment can also play in mental health help-
seeking--male-dominated and hyper-masculine
environments; community type (rural vs. urban).
•Strong Black woman (SBW) schema: beliefs and
attitudes about what it means to be a Black woman
(strong, selfless, resilient, and able to persevere).
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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24. Happiness and Well-Being
•Subjective well-being (SWB): short-term experiences
of positive emotions and longer-term, global judgments
of life satisfaction, meaning, and purpose.
•there is little evidence for a consistent sex difference in
SWB.
•One study that measured the predictors of SWB in 50
countries, found no sex differences across cultures
either in happiness or in the factors that predicted
happiness.
•Having a higher propensity for depression does not
mean that women report being less happy than men, in
general.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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25. Happiness and Well-Being
•Both age and cultural factors may contribute to sex
differences in SWB.
•One meta-analysis found that older women, reported
lower life satisfaction and happiness than men.
•Across the globe, women reported greater SWB than
men in both middle-income and high-income countries,
but men had slightly higher SWB than women in the
poorest countries.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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26. Happiness and Well-Being
•Unmitigated communion and unmitigated agency
are both associated with deficits in well-being.
•If children undergo highly sex-typed socialization
(parents and other socialization agents encourage
them to embody one set of traits to the exclusion of the
other), they may be less likely to experience positive
mental health outcomes.
•Balanced authenticity or optimal mental health
requires finding a middle ground between the
competing needs for agency and communion.
Bosson, The Psychology of Sex and Gender 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
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