Undifferentiated Gender Role Orientation, Drinking Motives, and Increased Alcohol Use in Men and Women

ABSTRACT

Background: Alcohol misuse has historically affected men more than women. However, the differences in drinking behaviors across sex have steadily decreased over time and accumulating research suggests that gender role orientation, or culturally scripted gender-specific characteristics, and negative reinforcement drinking motives may better explain risk for alcohol use and related problems than sex. Objectives: The current study tested a mediational model of the undifferentiated orientation (low masculinity and low femininity), an oft neglected orientation despite evidence that it could carry much weight in drinking behaviors, versus the other three gender role orientations, coping and conformity drinking motives, and hazardous alcohol use. Method: Participants were 426 current drinkers over age 21 (41% men; 77.8% Caucasian; M_age = 34.5, range = 21–73) residing across the United States who completed an online survey. Results: Structural equation modeling analyses suggested that individuals with an undifferentiated orientation (n = 99), compared to masculine (high masculinity, low femininity; n = 102), feminine (high femininity, low masculinity; n = 113), or androgynous (high masculinity, high femininity; n = 112) orientations, reported higher coping drinking motives, which were positively associated with levels of hazardous alcohol use. Although analyses suggested that undifferentiated individuals reported drinking for conformity motives more often than masculine and androgynous individuals, conformity motives were not associated with increased use. Conclusions/Importance: An undifferentiated gender role orientation may contribute a unique risk for alcohol use and related problems by increasing frequency of drinking to cope, a motive specifically associated with hazardous use trajectories.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcohol use
• conformity drinking motives
• coping
• drinking motives
• gender role orientation
• structural equation modeling
• undifferentiated orientation

Acknowledgment

This research was conducted when Dr. Fugitt was a student at the University of Arkansas.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Notes

1 We evaluated the path diagram in a multi-group analysis to compare relative path coefficients across men and women, finding evidence of structural invariance [χ² (11) = 8.79, p = .641]. Therefore, we opted to include gender as a predictor of gender role orientation in the model and conduct a single analysis for the entire sample.