Gender Role Conflict and Personality in Men: Using Cloninger's Seven-Factors Model

When stereotyped masculine gender roles, that are prescribed by society, “have negative consequences or impact on the person or others” (O. Neil, 1981b), a psychological state is produced, that James O. Neil calls it “Gender Role Conflict”. The present study was aimed to investigate into the relations of gender role conflict with personality dimensions and facets, using seven factor model of personality. 190 male students from university of social welfare and rehabilitation sciences and Tehran university completed an inventory including demographic variables, gender role conflict scale (GRCS; Persian form), and temperament and character inventory-revised (TCI-R; Persian Form). According to the results from multiple regression analyses, personality dimensions significantly predict gender role conflict and its four factors. Also, it appeared that gender role conflict has significant negative relations with novelty seeking, reward dependence, self-directedness, and cooperativeness; and positive relations with harm avoidance and persistence. Also, gender role conflict and its factors have specific relations with some temperament and character facets. The immaturity of self-directedness and cooperativeness, along with the configuration of temperament dimensions in men with high gender role conflict demonstrate the probability of more prevalence of personality disorder, specially obsessive-compulsive personality disorder among these men.