Sex Roles

, Volume 16, Issue 3–4, pp 205–214 | Cite as

Psychological distress, problem solving, and coping reactions: Sex role differences

  • Arthur M. Nezu
  • Christine M. Nezu
Article

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that psychological well-being and distress are strongly associated with masculinity, but unrelated to femininity. The present study provides for a replication of this literature in that results from 211 undergraduate students revealed that high-masculine subjects, compared to low-masculine persons, reported significantly lower scores on self-report measures of depression, state anxiety, and trait anxiety. No differences in distress were found as a function of sex or the femininity dimension. Further, high-masculine subjects, relative to low-masculine subjects, were also found to rate their problem-solving ability as more effective, to engage in more active-behavioral and less avoidance methods of coping in response to previously experienced stressful reactions and to engage in more problem-focused and less emotional-focused coping styles regarding stressful situations. Sex and femininity differences were not found related to differences in problem solving and coping. However, the relation between masculinity and distress was found to be nonsignificant when the variance due to coping was partialed out, suggesting that sex role relations to distress may be mediated by coping skills.

Keywords

Psychological Distress Undergraduate Student Trait Anxiety Stressful Situation Stressful Reaction 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Plenum Publishing Corporation 1987

Authors and Affiliations

  • Arthur M. Nezu
    • 1
  • Christine M. Nezu
    • 2
  1. 1.Fairleigh Dickinson University and Franklin D. Roosevelt V. A. HospitalUSA
  2. 2.Department of PsychologyFairleigh Dickinson UniversityTeaneck

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