Sharyn S. Belk

Adjustment in aging: the roles of life stress, hassles, and self-efficacy.

This study examines the relationship of life stress, daily hassles, and perceived self-efficacy to adjustment in a community sample of 32 men and 32 women between ages 65 and 75. In a structured interview, negative life change events, daily hassles, self-efficacy, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, and negative well being were assessed. Both negative life events and daily hassles were related to psychological distress and physical symptoms for men, and hassles were associated with psychological distress and physical symptoms for women. An inverse relationship between self-efficacy and maladjustment was also found. Hassles showed the most powerful relationship to distress.

Development of the emotional self-disclosure scale

The Emotional Self-Disclosure Scale (ESDS) was developed to assess how willing people are to discuss specific emotions with different disclosure recipients. Internal reliabilities (Cronbachs alpha) and test-retest were consistently high for each of the subscales on the ESDS for three specific disclosure recipients: female friends, male friends, and spouses/lovers. A final set of results indicated that womens and mens emotional disclosures varied as a function of their gender and the personal characteristics of the disclosure recipient. Although men and women reported a similar pattern of willingness to discuss their emotions with their male friends, additional results revealed that women were more willing than men to disclose information about their feelings of depression, anxiety, anger, and fear to their female friends and spouses/lovers. The implications of these findings for mens and womens emotional expressivity are discussed.

Alcohol and drug use in stressful times: The influence of the masculine role and sex-related personality attributes

In times of stress, men and women sometimes turn to the use of alcohol and drugs as an avenue for relieving their discomfort and distress. One explanation of this finding implicates traditional male tendencies as predisposing factors. The purpose of the present investigation was to study how the relationship between stress and substance use is moderated (1) by the masculine role, as measured by the Masculine Role Inventory; and (2) by socially desirable and undesirable masculine-instrumental and feminine-expressive personality attributes, as measured by the Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire. The results indicated that during stressful episodes men characterized by socially undesirable instrumental personality attributes reported using tranquilizers and sedatives. By contrast, it was found that during stressful times, women characterized by success preoccupation reported less use of mind-altering drugs and more use of tranquilizers-sedatives. In addition, it was found that socially desirable expressive attributes served to buffer the impact of stressful experiences on womens use of alcohol.

Men's and Women's Emotional Disclosures: The Impact of Disclosure Recipient, Culture, and the Masculine Role.

People vary in how willingly and how often they discuss their emotional experiences with others. A new Emotional Self-Disclosure Scale was used in three separate investigations to examine (Study I) mens and womens willingness to discuss their emotions with parents and therapists, (Study II) the impact of gender and culture on emotional disclosures to male and female friends and therapists, and (Study III) the impact of gender and the masculine role on willingness to emotionally disclose to parents and therapists. The results indicated that (a) female disclosers and female disclosure recipients, particularly mothers, were associated with greater willingness to emotionally disclose; (b) females from Mexico reported the most extensive disclosure of their emotions; and (c) the restrictive emotionality and inhibited affection aspects of the masculine role were negatively related to mens and womens willingness to be open and revealing about their emotional experiences, whereas the success dedication aspect of the masculine role was positively related to womens willingness to be emotionally open. The discussion focuses on the implications of the current findings and the relationship context of peoples emotional disclosures.

The masculine role as a moderator of stress-distress relationships

Health psychologists often content that men are more vulnerable to the effects of stress than are women. One explanation of this male risk factor deals with the masculine role — the set of values, beliefs, and expectations traditionally associated with mens lives. The present study was conducted to determine whether the restrictive emotionality, success preoccupation, and inhibited affection aspects of the masculine role, measured by the Masculine Role Inventory [MRI; W. E. Snell, Jr., “The Masculine Role Inventory (MRI): Components and Correlates,” Rex Roles, 1986] increase not only mens but also womens vulnerability to the effects of stressful life experiences. The results indicated that among both men and women with a recent history of stressful experiences in their lives, the masculine role was associated with elevated distress.

Development and Validation of the Sexual Self-Disclosure Scale

The recent literature on human sexuality emphasizes the importance of sexual communication. The present research reports the results of three studies documenting the development and validation of an instrument concerned with sexual communication, the Sexual Self-Disclosure Scale (SSDS). The results in Study I indicated that the twelve SSDS subscales were highly reliable and that women were more willing to discuss the topics on the SSDS with female than male therapists. A second study revealed that mens and womens responses to the SSDS were related in meaningful, predictable ways to their sexual-esteem, sexual-depression and sexual-preoccupation, as measured by the Sexuality Scale. In Study III, the SSDS was revised to include a wider variety of sexual topics dealing with sexual behaviors, values-preferences, attitudes, and feelings. The results from Study III indicated that mens and womens responses to the SSDS-R varied as a function of their own gender and the content of the sexual topics. The discussion focuses on the increased need for communication about sexual issues, the implications of the present findings for intimate relationships, and the possible uses of the Sexual Self-Disclosure Scale in the study of human sexuality.

Women's and men's willingness to self-disclose to therapists and friends: The moderating influence of instrumental, expressive, masculine, and feminine topics

The present study used the Masculine and Feminine Self-Disclosure Scale to investigate womens and mens willingness to self-disclose about the instrumental, expressive, masculine, and feminine aspects of themselves to four target persons: female and male therapists and friends. The data revealed that womens and mens willingness to self-disclose to therapists and friends was tempered by the gender of the target person and the particular “masculine” and “feminine” content of the disclosure topic. Men were more willing than women to discuss the global masculine aspects of themselves with a male friend. In contrast, women were more willing than men to discuss (1) their expressive behaviors with both female and male friends and (2) their global feminity with female and male therapists and friends. The discussion emphasizes gender role phenomena as an important dimension of womens and mens willingness to disclose personal information about their masculinity and femininity to therapists and friends.

Cognitive beliefs about male sexuality: The impact of gender roles and counselor perspectives

Two studies are presented which examine stereotypie beliefs about males and their sexuality through the use of the Stereotypes About Male Sexuality Scale (SAMSS). In the first study, the relationship between the SAMSS and two gender role measures were examined. The results revealed that the restrictive emotionality aspect of the masculine role was strongly associated with stereotypic beliefs about male sexuality. Other gender role preferences and behaviors were also found to be positively associated with conventional “performance” approaches to male sexuality. In the second investigation, counseling trainees were asked to describe how mentally healthy adult men and women would respond to the Stereotypes About Male Sexuality Scale. The responses of both male and female intraining counselors indicated that they expected mentally healthy males: (a) to reject inhibited, control, and constant readiness approaches to the expression of male sexuality and (b) to express greater disagreement toward defining male sexuality exclusively in terms of sexual intercourse and toward viewing males as inherently knowledgeable about sex. These results thus provide evidence for the importance of the SAMSS and a cognitive approach to the study of male sexuality.

The masculine and feminine self-disclosure scale: The politics of masculine and feminine self-presentation

A self-disclosure questionnaire was devised to examine womens and mens willingness to disclose information about the “masculine” and “feminine” aspects of themselves. The Masculine and Feminine Self-Disclosure Scale (MFSDS) has four separate subscales: two masculine scales assess the tendency to discuss agentic, instrumental traits and behaviors; and two feminine scales measure the tendency to self-disclose about communal, expressive traits and behaviors. The results indicated that womens and mens disclosure of their masculine-instrumental and feminine-expressive traits and behaviors to a disclosure recipient was tempered by the content of the disclosure and the personal characteristics of the disclosure recipient. These findings were interpreted within a self-presentational analysis that women and men attempted to foster favorable masculine-instrumental and feminine-expressive images for particular persons.

Avoidance Strategy Use in the Intimate Relationships of Women and Men from Mexico and the United States.

Avoidance strategy use refers to the techniques that people use to deal with unwelcome requests from other individuals. Previous research has shown that avoidance strategies in intimate relationships vary along two dimensions: compliance and bilateral dimensions. To determine whether individuals from Mexico and the United States differ in their use of these avoidance strategies with their intimate partners, a study was conducted on males and females from Mexico and the United States. The results indicated that women from the United States reported using more nonverbal disapproval and voices objections types of avoidance strategies with their intimate partners than did women from Mexico and men from both the United States and Mexico. The discussion focuses on the use of social influence strategies among men and women from Mexico and the United States.