Attachment Orientation as a Moderator of Masculinity Gender

Attachment Orientation as a Moderator of Masculinity & Gender Stress Braden Smolko, Jordan Epistola & Paul Hanges Dynamical Systems Lab Introduction • Men conform to societal norms of Status, Toughness, and Anti-Femininity (Thomson & Pleck, 1986) • Men experience gender stress when they fail to live up to these norms (Vandello, Bosson, Cohen, Burnaford, & Weaver, 2008) • Conformity to Status and Anti-Femininity norms and masculine gender stress predicts aggression and hostility towards women (Gallegher & Parrott, 2011) • Attachment orientations have been linked to masculinity stress and violent attitudes (Mc. Dermott & Lopez, 2013) • This research examines how attachment orientations moderate the relationship between status and anti-femininity norms and masculine gender stress. Participants Results • Multiple regression tests were used to test moderator hypotheses. • Anti-Femininity: No evidence of attachment orientation moderation on five facets of masculine gender stress (p >. 05). • Status-Norm: • • Intellectual Inferiority: Two-way interactions were observed between self-reliance & attachment anxiety (B = -1. 25, p <. 01) and winning & attachment avoidance (B = 1. 07, p <. 05). Performance Failure: Two-way interaction was observed between winning & attachment anxiety (B = 1. 04, p <. 05). • Results of Status-Norm, Attachment & Gender Stress seen below. • 159 Heterosexual Males at UMD • 10 -minute Online Survey Study Lower Working Middle Significant Interactions Status: Hsu & Iwamoto’s (2014) “Winning” (α =. 82) & “Self-Reliance” • Anti-Femininity: Hsu & Iwamoto’s (2014) “Power Over Women” (α = • • Self-Reliance x Attachment Anxiety on Intellectual Inferiority Winning x Attachment Anxiety on Performance Failure Asian 38% 17% Black 55 Mixed Latino 31% • Attachment anxiety and avoidance appears to only impact status norms and contexts of intellectual inferiority & performance failure. • Null results may be due to a) use of different measures, b) social desirability bias & c) multi-collinearity issues. • Future research may involve retesting hypotheses via structural equation modeling, using experimental design to engender masculinity stress instead of selfreport and examining if stress predicts aggression and hostility towards women. References (α =. 76) subscales . 75) and “Heterosexual Self-Presentation” (α =. 84) subscales Attachment Anxiety & Avoidance – Wei’s (2007) ECR-Short form Measure for attachment anxiety (α =. 79) and avoidance (α =. 77) Masculine Gender Stress: Eisler & Skidmore’s (1987) “Physical Inadequacy (α =. 79), ” “Emotional Inexpressiveness (α =. 72), ” “Subordination to Women (α =. 86), ” “Intellectual Inferiority (α =. 66), ” and “Performance Failure (α =. 83)” 25 Discussion • Attachment Anxiety & Avoidance moderates the effect of Status & Anti-Femininity with Masculine Gender Stress. • 3% White 65 Upper. Middle Hypotheses Measures 68 11% • • • Men in the low attachment anxiety group had a significant positive relationship between conformity to self-reliance norms and feeling stress related to intellectual inferiority. This was not the case for men in the high attachment anxiety group. Men in the high attachment anxiety group had a significant positive relationship between conformity to wining norms and feeling stress related to performance failure, whereas the low attachment anxiety group did not have a significant relationship. • • Thompson, E. H. , & Pleck, J. H. (1986). Male Role Norms Scale. Psyc. TESTS Dataset. doi: 10. 1037/t 06406 -000 Vandello, J. A. , Bosson, J. K. , Cohen, D. , Burnaford, R. M. , & Weaver, J. R. (2008). Precarious manhood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(6), 1325– 1339. doi: 10. 1037/a 0012453 Gallagher, K. E. , & Parrott, D. J. (2011). What Accounts for Men’s Hostile Attitudes Toward Women? The Influence of Hegemonic Male Role Norms and Masculine Gender Role Stress. Violence Against Women, 17(5), 568– 583. doi: 10. 1177/1077801211407296 Mcdermott, R. C. , & Lopez, F. G. (2013). College mens intimate partner violence attitudes: Contributions of adult attachment and gender role stress. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 60(1), 127– 136. doi: 10. 1037/a 0030353 Hsu, K. , & Iwamoto, D. K. (2014). Testing for measurement invariance inthe conformity to Masculine Norms-46 across White and Asian Amer-ican college men: Development and validity of the CMNI-29. Psychol-ogy of Men & Masculinity, 15, 397– 406. http: //dx. doi. org/10. 1037/a 0034548 Wei, M. , Russell, D. W. , Mallinckrodt, B. , & Vogel, D. L. (2007). The experiences in Close Relationship Scale (ECR)-Short Form: Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88, 187 -204. Eisler, R. M. , & Skidmore, J. R. (1987). Masculine Gender Role Stress. Behavior Modification, 11(2), 123– 136. doi: 10. 1177/01454455870112001