Using the theory of reasoned action to predict college men’s intentions to seek psychological help.
Year: 2009
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This study sought to increase current understanding of men's help-seeking intentions using the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980).The TRA provides a comprehensive framework to simultaneously assess several beliefs that may contribute to the formation of attitudes and subjective norms that, in turn, determine a person's intention to perform a specific behavior such as seeking psychological help.Using existing psychological measures of help-seeking variables (i.e., attitudes, subjective norms, anticipated risks and benefits of self-disclosure, treatment fears, selfdisclosure willingness, social and personal stigma for seeking psychological help) and masculinity constructs (i.e., gender role conflict and conformity to traditional male norms), this study examined a fully mediated and partially mediated TRA model to predict help-seeking intentions in a sample of college men (N = 338).Results from both models revealed a less-than-adequate fit with the data, accounting for 18.1% to 26.5% of the variance in men's help-seeking intentions.Based on these results, an alternative posthoc TRA model was examined and found to be an excellent fit with the data, accounting for 42.4% of the variance in men's help-seeking intentions.Overall, results from this study supported an alternative partially mediated TRA model that accounted for a large portion of variance in men's help-seeking intentions.
Author: Timothy E. Rogers
Institution: University of Akron
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: University of Akron
OpenAlex ID: W2286970206