title: Masculinity-femininity as a national characteristic and its relationship with national agoraphobic fear levels: Fodor's sex role hypothesis revitalized.
abstract: Hofstede's dimension of national culture termed Masculinity-Femininity [. Cultures and organizations: software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill] is proposed to be of relevance for understanding national-level differences in self-assessed agoraphobic fears. This prediction is based on the classical work of Fodor [. In: V. Franks & V. Burtle (Eds.), Women in therapy: new psychotherapies for a changing society. New York: Brunner/Mazel]. A unique data set comprising 11 countries (total N=5491 students) provided the opportunity of scrutinizing this issue. It was hypothesized and found that national Masculinity (the degree to which cultures delineate sex roles, with masculine or tough societies making clearer differentiations between the sexes than feminine or modest societies do) would correlate positively with national agoraphobic fear levels (as assessed with the Fear Survey Schedule-III). Following the correction for sex and age differences across national samples, a significant and large effect-sized national-level (ecological) r=+0.67 (P=0.01) was found. A highly feminine society such as Sweden had the lowest, whereas the champion among the masculine societies, Japan, had the highest national Agoraphobic fear score.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Groningen, Heymans Institute, Grote Kruisstraat 2/I, 9712 TS, Groningen, The Netherlands. w.arrindell@ppsw.rug.nl
authors.forename: W A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Arrindell
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eisemann
authors.forename: Jörg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Richter
authors.forename: Tian P S
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Oei
authors.forename: Vicente E
authors.initials: VE
authors.lastname: Caballo
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van der Ende
authors.forename: Ezio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sanavio
authors.forename: Nuri
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bagés
authors.forename: Lya
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Feldman
authors.forename: Bárbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Torres
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sica
authors.forename: Saburo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Iwawaki
authors.forename: Chryse
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hatzichristou
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000379:Agoraphobia / Q000208:ethnology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology*