DATE: April 19, 2025 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

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TITLE: Men underestimate each other’s willingness to seek help for depression, study finds

URL: https://www.psypost.org/men-underestimate-each-others-willingness-to-seek-help-for-depression-study-finds/

Many men underestimate how willing other men are to seek help for depression, which may discourage them from seeking help themselves, according to a new study published in Sex Roles.

Despite the availability of mental health services, many people experiencing depression delay or avoid seeking help. Hege H. Bye and colleagues investigated whether one barrier might be a form of pluralistic ignorance, where individuals mistakenly believe that others in their group are less likely to seek help than they themselves are. Prior research suggests people often misjudge how others perceive mental illness, assuming stigma is more widespread than it is. These misperceptions can shape behavior and hinder treatment-seeking.

The researchers were particularly interested in how gender affects these misperceptions. Past studies have yielded mixed findings on whether men seek help less than women, but cultural stereotypes tend to portray men as less inclined to pursue psychological support.

The researchers conducted two preregistered experiments using large, population-based samples of Norwegian adults. Experiment 1 utilized a between-groups experimental design in which 2,042 participants were randomly assigned to read a vignette describing either a male (Kristian) or female (Kristine) character experiencing symptoms of depression. The vignettes were based on diagnostic criteria for a depressive episode from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) and adapted from prior research.

After reading the vignette, participants answered two key questions. First, they rated how likely they would be to seek help from a doctor or a psychologist if they felt like the character. Then, they rated how likely they believed “most men” or “most women” would seek such help if in the same situation. Both questions were rated separately for doctor and psychologist, using a six-point scale from “highly unlikely” to “highly likely.”

Experiment 2 focused on disclosure rather than help-seeking. It used a 2 (social context: friends vs. colleagues) × 2 (vignette character gender: male vs. female) × 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) experimental design. Participants (N = 1,528) read a vignette about a character (Anne or Arne) who had sought help from a general practitioner for depression. Depending on the condition, the vignette described either a workplace or social context in which the character was in conversation with colleagues or friends.

After reading the vignette, participants answered three fixed-order questions: what the character would likely do (descriptive norm), what the character should do (personal normative belief), and what they themselves would do (behavioral intention). Each item required participants to choose between disclosing truthfully or concealing the help-seeking.

Experiment 1 revealed that men reported lower willingness to seek professional help for depression than women. Specifically, men were less likely than women to say they would contact either a doctor or a psychologist. Further, men underestimated other men’s help-seeking willingness, demonstrating pluralistic ignorance. Men believed that “most men” were less likely to seek help than they themselves were. Women also underestimated men’s willingness to seek help, and to an even greater extent than men did.

In contrast, women’s perceptions of other women were accurate—they did not systematically underestimate other women’s likelihood of seeking help. Supporting this, women’s own willingness to seek help matched their estimates of “most women.” There was also evidence that perceptions of others’ help-seeking correlated with individuals’ own reported willingness, particularly when the perceived norms were about the same gender group (e.g., men’s own help-seeking correlated strongly with what they thought other men would do). This pattern supports the idea that perceived norms shape behavior.

Experiment 2 showed that men were significantly less likely than women to say they would disclose having sought help for depression, whether to friends or colleagues. This suggests that men may contribute to a more hidden information environment around male help-seeking, which could fuel the pluralistic ignorance observed in Experiment 1.

Women rated the male character as less likely to disclose help-seeking than the female character, both in friend and workplace contexts. Men showed a similar pattern, but the difference was not statistically significant. This indicates that women held stronger misperceptions about men’s disclosure behavior.

However, contrary to expectations, both men and women believed that both male and female characters should disclose—personal normative beliefs favored openness across the board. In other words, the reluctance to disclose was not rooted in beliefs that disclosure was wrong, but likely in anticipated stigma or discomfort. This helps explain how an environment of silence around male help-seeking might persist, even if people endorse disclosure in principle.

The authors note that participants’ own mental health status was not assessed, which could influence both help-seeking and perceptions of others’ behavior.

The research, “Men’s Help-Seeking Willingness and Disclosure of Depression: Experimental Evidence for the Role of Pluralistic Ignorance,” was authored by Hege H. Bye, Frida L. Måseidvåg, and Samantha M. Harris.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/men-underestimate-each-others-willingness-to-seek-help-for-depression-study-finds/

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DATE: April 19, 2025 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

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TITLE: Impulsivity and resilience help explain how childhood trauma affects coping in youth with depression

URL: https://www.psypost.org/impulsivity-and-resilience-help-explain-how-childhood-trauma-affects-coping-in-youth-with-depression/

A study of youths with depression in China found that resilience and impulsivity may mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and coping style. However, impulsivity did not play a mediating role among healthy participants. The study was published in Scientific Reports.

Depression is a common and serious mental health disorder characterized by persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a loss of interest or pleasure in previously enjoyable activities. It can affect individuals at any point in life, with symptoms that vary in severity and often impair daily functioning and overall well-being.

There are several types of depressive disorders. Two of the most prominent are major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. Major depressive disorder involves episodes of severe depressive symptoms lasting at least two weeks, significantly disrupting daily life. Bipolar disorder, in contrast, is marked by mood swings that alternate between emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression), leading to substantial fluctuations in mood, energy, and activity levels.

Study author Jiawei Zhou and her colleagues aimed to examine how childhood maltreatment influences coping styles in youth diagnosed with major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder, and how this relationship compares to that observed in healthy individuals. Childhood maltreatment includes a range of adverse experiences that can have lasting impacts on development and mental health, such as emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect.

Emotional abuse includes behaviors like verbal insults and constant criticism that undermine a child’s self-esteem. Physical abuse involves causing bodily harm, such as through hitting or burning. Sexual abuse refers to involving a child in sexual acts that they cannot understand or consent to, such as molestation or exploitation. Emotional neglect occurs when a child’s emotional needs are consistently ignored, while physical neglect refers to a failure to provide basic necessities like food, shelter, and medical care.

The study included 196 participants with major depressive disorder, 81 with bipolar disorder, and 98 healthy individuals. The average age of participants with depression was approximately 19 years, while the healthy participants had an average age of 21. Participants ranged in age from 16 to 25 years and were predominantly female. All participants were recruited from the outpatient psychiatric department of the Second Xiangya Hospital at Central South University in Changsha, China.

Participants completed several psychological assessments: the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire – Short Form (to measure childhood maltreatment), the Beck Depression Inventory (to assess depressive symptoms), the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (to measure resilience), the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 (to assess impulsivity), and the Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (to evaluate coping strategies).

The findings revealed that individuals with more severe childhood maltreatment experiences tended to report lower resilience, higher impulsivity, and less positive coping styles. This pattern was observed across all three groups. The researchers tested a statistical model suggesting that childhood maltreatment lowers resilience, which in turn increases impulsivity, which then negatively affects coping style. The data supported this proposed pathway, but also indicated that direct relationships exist between these variables.

When the model was analyzed separately for each group, it was fully supported among participants with major depressive disorder. In the bipolar disorder group, the model was also supported, although the effect of childhood maltreatment on coping style was entirely indirect—operating through resilience and impulsivity. Among healthy individuals, resilience was linked to more positive coping strategies, and childhood maltreatment was indirectly related to coping style through its negative effect on resilience. However, the direct link between impulsivity and coping style was not observed in this group.

“The study highlights that childhood maltreatment is directly related to coping styles in youths with depression and indirectly affects them through resilience and impulsivity. These findings suggest that improving resilience and managing impulsivity could enhance positive coping styles in this population,” the study authors concluded.

The study sheds light on the links between coping styles and childhood maltreatment experiences. However, it should be noted that the design of the study does not allow any definitive causal inferences to be derived from the results. The models proposed in the study are possible, not verified to be true as there may be other models of relationships between studied factors that are also possible.

The paper “Childhood maltreatment influences coping in youths with major depression and bipolar depression through resilience and impulsivity” was authored by Jiawei Zhou, Zheng Zhang, Sihong Li, Hui Chen, Xianliang Chen, HuajiaTang, and Jiansong Zhou.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/impulsivity-and-resilience-help-explain-how-childhood-trauma-affects-coping-in-youth-with-depression/

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DATE: April 19, 2025 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

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TITLE: Facial hair influences trust and attractiveness—but only among a specific group of men

URL: https://www.psypost.org/facial-hair-influences-trust-and-attractiveness-but-only-among-a-specific-group-of-men/

Facial hair can influence how much people trust you—but the effects depend on age and beard style. A new study published in Acta Psychologica found that young men with light stubble were perceived as more attractive, and as a result, they were trusted with more money in a trust-based economic game. However, these effects were not seen for older men or those with full beards.. The research adds nuance to popular beliefs about the so-called “beauty premium,” showing that physical appearance only enhances trust under specific conditions.

The “beauty premium” refers to the idea that attractive individuals tend to receive more favorable treatment in a range of social and economic situations. Studies have found that attractive people are more likely to be hired, earn higher wages, and receive more lenient treatment in court. These advantages may also extend to interpersonal trust.

Since facial hair can shape perceptions of masculinity, dominance, and attractiveness, the researchers at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná in Brazil and Seton Hall University in the United States set out to test whether different beard styles influenced how much people trusted others, and whether age modified this relationship.

“Although the ‘beauty premium’ is well established in the literature, we noticed a scarcity of studies investigating whether individuals could manipulate this ‘premium’ to their advantage,” Angela Cristiane Santos Póvoa and her colleagues told PsyPost. “In 2020, we published a paper in the Journal of Economic Psychology titled ‘Is the Beauty Premium accessible to all?’, which explored the effects of makeup on trust, and found that the application of makeup increased trust levels. This new paper complements the previous one by focusing on men, specifically examining the role of facial hair—particularly beards—and its impact on trust.”

The researchers designed a laboratory experiment based on a standard trust game. A total of 171 university students from Brazil played the role of the trustor—the person deciding how much money to entrust to another player, the trustee. Trustees were not real participants but instead represented by standardized photos of men with different facial hair and age appearances. These images were digitally altered using photo-editing software to create six variations: clean-shaven, light stubble, and full beard, each depicted with either a younger or older appearance.

Participants played the trust game three times, each time paired with a new trustee photo. After each decision, they rated the trustee’s attractiveness and noted any features that stood out. Trustees’ photos were displayed with neutral expressions, and participants had no other information about them. The amount of money transferred from trustor to trustee served as the measure of trust.

The researchers verified that their photo manipulations were realistic. In a separate task, 43 people attempted to identify which version of a given photo was unaltered. On average, they correctly identified the original image only 11.6% of the time, well below the 16.7% expected by chance. This suggested that the age and facial hair edits were convincingly lifelike.

The results showed no overall effect of beard type on trust. However, older-looking trustees received more money than younger-looking ones, regardless of their facial hair. This supported the idea that age on its own boosts perceived trustworthiness.

But when breaking down the results further, a more complex pattern emerged. Among younger trustees, those with light stubble received significantly more money than their clean-shaven or fully bearded peers. This effect was not present for older trustees.

“Initially, we hypothesized that any type of beard would enhance trust perception,” the researchers said. “However, the results revealed that only light stubble increased trust levels. The effect was not universal, however, as it was present only among younger individuals with light stubble. These findings challenge previous literature that suggests all forms of facial hair uniformly enhance both trust and attractiveness in men.”

Attractiveness ratings followed a similar pattern. Trustees with light stubble were rated as more attractive than clean-shaven ones, and slightly more attractive than those with full beards. Again, these effects were only seen in younger faces. Among older-looking trustees, beard style did not influence perceived attractiveness.

To explore whether attractiveness explained the boost in trust for younger men with stubble, the researchers conducted a statistical mediation analysis. They found that the increase in trust was indirectly driven by increased attractiveness. In other words, the light stubble made young men appear more attractive, and this attractiveness led participants to trust them with more money. No such mediation effect was observed for older men or for other beard styles.

These findings offer partial support for the idea that facial hair enhances trust, but they suggest that this effect is highly dependent on age and beard type. Contrary to previous studies suggesting that all types of facial hair signal trustworthiness, this experiment found that only young men with light stubble benefited from a trust advantage. This aligns with earlier research indicating that light stubble is often considered the most attractive level of facial hair, particularly in short-term social judgments.

“The main message from our paper is that the results indicate that when strangers interact with each other, the probability that someone will trust another individual is also a function of visual cues,” Póvoa and her colleagues said. “Specifically, it seems like people use the presence or absence of beard as one of these visual cues, and the presence of a light stubble increases trust levels.”

While the study provides valuable insights, it also has several limitations. The sample included only Brazilian university students as trustors, limiting generalizability to other cultural contexts or age groups. Trustees were depicted as white men only, and only two broad age groups were represented.

The study also tested only three beard types, leaving out variations like mustaches, goatees, or patchy growth. Cultural associations with facial hair styles, such as the hipster image attached to full beards in Brazilian youth culture, may also influence perceptions in ways not fully accounted for.

“Future research should broaden the age range, cultural settings, and types of facial hair, and consider dynamic stimuli to capture real-world complexity in appearance-based trust decisions,” the researchers said.

“The overarching goal of this research trajectory is to deepen our understanding of how physical appearance influences economic decision-making, particularly in contexts that involve trust, cooperation, and credibility assessments. Building on foundational findings related to the ‘beauty premium’ and appearance-based biases, this line of inquiry aims to contribute to uncover the psychological and social mechanisms that mediate the effects of facial features, such as facial hair, age, and perceived attractiveness, on trust and financial decisions.”

“We believe it would be highly valuable for this research to be replicated in other countries and cultural contexts,” the researchers concluded. “Expanding the cross-cultural scope is one of our key goals, and we are actively seeking new collaborators interested in joining forces to conduct comparative studies. We warmly invite researchers and institutions who share an interest in this topic to connect with us and explore potential partnerships.”

The study, “Is beard the male makeup? An experimental study on trust perception based on appearance,” was authored by Angela Cristiane Santos Póvoa, Wesley Pech, Juan José Camou Viacava, Hendrigo Bernardi Korndorfer, and Lucas Casonato Jacinto.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/facial-hair-influences-trust-and-attractiveness-but-only-among-a-specific-group-of-men/

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