Research Highlights
What’s the question your research is trying to answer?
Is the internal consistency of the Male Role Norms Scale (Thompson & Pleck, 1986) affected by the sexual orientation of the participants? Furthermore, to what degree is masculinity, as defined by the MRNS, moderated by sexual orientation?
Why did you choose this topic? Who did you work with?
We chose this topic because we were interested in examining the effects of masculinity on help–seeking. We then narrowed our topic to examining the endorsement of hegemonic masculinity. Noting a gap in the literature concerning sexual orientation, we chose to approach this topic from an intersectional lens while staying within the field of men’s studies and masculinity. Researchers on this project included Fares Bashool, Connor Crawford, Connie Flachs, Philip Lyall, and Michael Lamont Scarboro. We were assisted by Von Nebbit and Daji Dvalishvili.
What conclusions came out of the research?
Both our non–heterosexual and heterosexual male samples from 2021 endorsed “Toughness” and “Antifeminitiy” to a lesser degree than did Thompson & Pleck’s sample from 1986. However, our samples endorsed “Status” to a similar extent as theirs. Our measures of internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) demonstrate that the MRNS can reliably measure the endorsement of male norms in a non–heterosexual population. The scale works for our sample and the study could be replicated with other non–heterosexual populations in the future.