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Just possibly, on a bed made of $100 notes at the heart of a superyacht freighted with tame monkeys and nubile glamour models, Justin Bieber is sobbing wordlessly into one of his gold lamé
pillows at this very moment. Men who chase after the playboy lifestyle are consistently at greater risk of mental health troubles, an analysis has concluded. Sexist attitudes are not only
upsetting to many women but also tend to leave their exponents in a position where they are not only more likely to suffer conditions such as depression and bipolar disorder but also less
likely to ask for medical help, scientists found. The link between the domineering, stiff-upper-lip model of masculinity and a host of psychological problems in both men and women has been
well established. It is less clear which bits of the traditional ideal of manliness are causing so much unhappiness, however. Three researchers from the United States and Singapore looked at
the relationship between disorders of the mind and 11 classical traits of manhood such as competitiveness, status-seeking, risk-taking and homophobia. In a paper published in the _Journal
of Counselling Psychology_, they went through the results of 78 previous experiments involving more than 19,000 people. Advertisement The most reassuring finding, according to Joel Wong, of
Indiana University Bloomington, who led the study, was that a tendency to spend long hours at work was relatively benign. “Primacy of work was not significantly associated with any of the
mental health-related outcomes,” Dr Wong said. “Perhaps this is a reflection of the complexity of work and its implications for wellbeing. An excessive focus on work can be harmful to one’s
health and interpersonal relationships, but work is also a source of meaning for many individuals.” Each of the remaining ten stereotypical forms of masculinity, however, were linked to a
higher risk of mental health issues. This is particularly true of sexism which, the authors say, is “not merely a social injustice, but also has deleterious mental health-related
consequences for those who embrace such attitudes”. One explanation is that in the long run it becomes harder for men with such attitudes to form meaningful and happy relationships with
women. Dr Wong said that “self-reliance” — the tendency not to seek help — seemed to have a similar effect. “In general, individuals who conformed strongly to masculine norms tended to have
poorer mental health and less favourable attitudes toward seeking psychological help, although the results differed depending on specific types of masculine norms,” he said. Advertisement
“The masculine norms of [the] playboy and power over women are the norms most closely associated with sexist attitudes.”