The correlation of men's studies involvement and gender role development among counseling psychologists

The focus of this study had two primary purposes; the first was to document the current level of involvement of counseling psychologists in men's issues and men's studies. The second goal was to explore whether any relationship existed between psychologists' own gender role development and their involvement in various segments of men's studies and/or the men's movement. The degree of gender role progression was determined by the Gender Role Journey Measure (GRJM) (O'Neil et al., 1993), which seeks to identify the developmental level of the respondents• beliefs about gender roles for women and men (e.g, stereotypically traditional in their attitudes and behavior vs. personal activism in promoting greater freedom among men's and women's gender roles). In general, results similar to those of O'Neil et al. (1998) were expected in which they found more females than males reporting gender role ambivalence (Phase 2) while more men than women espoused traditional gender role attitudes (Phase 1). In addition, more women than men acknowledged personal and/or professional activism in gender role issues (Phase 8). In this study, the latter two results were supported from this sample of 233 participants from an initial survey of 600 counseling psychologists within the American Psychological Association. This research also examined if any relationship existed between the three GRJM phases and information regarding personal and professional demographics provided by counseling psychologists within APA. It was expected that individuals who scored highest in phase 3 of the GRJM would be more involved in one or more levels of men's studies and/or the men's movement activities, and the results indicated this to be true on some of these items. As for analysis of the demographic variables, some significant relationships were noted regarding involvement of counseling psychologists in the study of men's issues and men's movement activities.