Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

357

Date

2011

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Counseling Psychology

Committee Chair

Suzanne Lease

Committee Member

Sharon Horne

Committee Member

Nancy Nishimura

Committee Member

Ronnie Priest

Abstract

The current study investigated the role of masculinity, mental health stigma, religious coping, and cultural mistrust in accounting for attitudes toward help-seeking in African American men. While masculinity and mental health stigma are known to predict attitudes toward help-seeking, it was expected that religious coping and cultural mistrust might also be significant predictors in a sample of African American men. Participants from the study consisted of 133 African American men. The majority of participants were from one predominantly White university in the midsouthern part of the United States and one historically Black university in the southeastern part of the United States. A regression analysis was used to analyze the data. The hypothesis that masculinity and mental health stigma would account for a significant unique proportion of the variance in attitudes toward psychological help-seeking was confirmed. The hypothesis that religious coping and cultural mistrust would be significant predictors of help-seeking attitudes was not supported by the current study. The results add to the literature by supporting the importance of the masculinity and stigma constructs in a sample of African American men and suggesting that cultural mistrust may not be as important in explaining the underutilization of mental health services by African American men as previously suggested. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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