Relationship of males' adherence to masculine role norms and emotional expressiveness to preferences for therapeutic style and therapists' gender

Abstract

Males' adherence to masculine role norms and their willingness to express emotions were hypothesized to predict their preferences for therapists' gender and therapists' style of reflecting emotions. Additionally, the following variables were hypothesized to predict subjects' therapeutic preferences: subjects' major, fathers' occupation, parents' educational and income level, fathers' traditionalism, closeness to parents, and gender of primary parent. Undergraduate college students viewed one of four videotapes, which depicted actors portraying a male client being engaged by a therapist. The tape showed the following four treatment conditions: male therapist reflecting the client's content, female therapist reflecting the client's content, male therapist reflecting the client's feelings and content, and female therapist reflecting the feelings and content. Subjects preferred female therapists who reflected feelings and affect over males therapists who did so. Subjects' rating of the therapists, measured by the Counselor Rating Form--Short Version (CRF-S), were not predicted (p<.05) by subjects' adherence to masculine role norms, as measured by Brannon's Masculinity Scale--Short Version (BMS-S), nor by their willingness to express emotions as measured by the Expression of Emotions Scale (EES). In addition, the following variables did not predict (p<.05) therapeutic ratings: subjects' major, fathers' occupation, parents' educational and income level, fathers' traditionalism, closeness to parents, and being raised by a particular parent. These results are discussed as well as the limitations of the study.