Memo to President-elect Donald J. Trump: Men who style themselves as playboys and enjoy wielding power over women may be putting their own mental health at risk, according to a new study.
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The large-scale analysis published this week in the Journal of Counseling Psychology links those character traits with poor mental health and an inability to seek psychological help.
The study's authors suspect men who engage in that kind of sexism, which Trump boasted of doing during the campaign, may ultimately deprive themselves of meaningful connections and relationships, which can lead to loneliness and depression.
Y. Joel Wong, lead author of the study and an associate professor in the counseling psychology program at Indiana University in Bloomington, says he hopes the findings encourage people to see sexism as not only "social injustice," but also behavior that's insidious for the person who adopts it.
"It's not just something that’s simply harmful to women. Perpetrators might suffer themselves."
"It's not just something that’s simply harmful to women," he told F7view. "Perpetrators might suffer themselves... through a boomerang effect."
That happens, for example, when a man interacts with someone who sees his views as outdated and offensive and subtly avoids the man in question or explicitly calls out his offensive behavior. Either way, the man has one less relationship with a friend or family member.
While individual studies have previously hinted at this dynamic, Wong's research synthesized the findings from 74 studies that included more than 19,400 participants over an 11-year period. The results provide more convincing evidence that conforming to certain masculine norms is associated with making some men miserable.
The researchers looked at 11 masculine norms: winning, emotional control, risk-taking, violence, dominance, playboy, self-reliance, primacy of work, power over women, disdain for homosexuals and pursuit of status.
Being a playboy, seeking power over women and self-reliance were all correlated with poor mental health and difficulty seeking professional psychological help. These were also inversely related to positive aspects of mental health like life satisfaction and social well-being.
The seven other types of masculine norms were less persuasively and consistently related to mental health-outcomes.
Only one of the norms — risk-taking — was favorably and significantly associated with good mental health. But even that finding, said Wong, is complicated by the fact that risk-taking was also linked to negative outcomes. Wong believes this paradox may be rooted in how risk-taking can help people "stretch themselves beyond their comfort zone" in a liberating way, while also leading them to engage in potentially dangerous behavior like substance use.
Wong, who began planning this study in 2013, realizes the timing of the results is uncanny given that Trump just won the presidency despite demonstrating the masculine traits most likely to harm a man's mental health. While some men might take Trump's victory as proof that blatant sexism might actually work to their advantage, Wong is less convinced.
"[D]emonstrating some of the really inappropriate masculine norms, like power over women, and getting rewarded for it — yes, that’s a blow, that’s a concern, that’s devastating," he said. "On the other hand... you got a lot of pushback."
Such criticism can now include evidence that certain types of sexism leave psychological scars for both the victim and offender, an argument people may need to draw on more than once in the next four years.
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