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Idealized cultural beliefs about gender: implications for mental health

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Abstract

Background

In this paper, we examined the relationship between culture-specific ideals (chastity, masculinity, caste beliefs) and self-esteem, shame and depression using an idealized cultural model proposed by Mahalingam (2006, In: Mahalingam R (ed) Cultural psychology of immigrants. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, pp 1–14).

Methods

Participants were from communities with a history of extreme male-biased sex ratios in Tamilnadu, India (N = 785).

Results

We hypothesized a dual-process model of self-appraisals suggesting that achieving idealized cultural identities would increase both self-esteem and shame, with the latter leading to depression, even after controlling for key covariates. We tested this using structural equation modeling. The proposed idealized cultural identities model had an excellent fit (CFI  = 0.99); the effect of idealized identities on self-esteem, shame and depression differed by gender.

Conclusions

Idealized beliefs about gender relate to psychological well-being in gender specific ways in extreme son preference communities. We discuss implications of these findings for future research and community-based interventions.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jana Haritatos, Jennifer Yim, Hiro Saito, Sundari Balan and Lilia Cortina for their valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. We are extremely thankful to Quadir Ismail for his help with the data collection, and to Laura Klem for her help with the statistical analyses. We thank the editors and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments in the previous drafts. The first author received funding from the following units to conduct this research: Program to Promote International Partnership Program, Institute for Research on Women and Gender and a faculty seed grant from the University of Michigan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Psychology, University of Michigan, 3263 East Hall, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1109, USA

    Ramaswami Mahalingam

  2. Smith College, Northampton, MA, USA

    Benita Jackson

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  1. Ramaswami Mahalingam
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  2. Benita Jackson
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Correspondence to Ramaswami Mahalingam.

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Mahalingam, R., Jackson, B. Idealized cultural beliefs about gender: implications for mental health. Soc Psychiat Epidemiol 42, 1012–1023 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-007-0250-8

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