Masculinity–femininity as a national characteristic and its relationship with

national agoraphobic fear levels: Fodor’s sex role hypothesis revitalized

W. A. Arrindell et al. (2003)

Background: Cultural differences in prevalence, symptoms and diagnosis have been

observed between many different cultural dimensions and disorders. Agoraphobia, like
many other anxiety and affective disorders, is almost twice as common in women as it is in
men. Fodor, in 1974, proposed that these differences between sexes are due to the different
sex roles men and women assume in society, with anxiety and depression being more
common in women because they are more consistent with the female sex role. More recent
research (Arrindell et al., 1993) found that it wasn’t so much the presence of the female sex
role, but rather the absence of the male sex role characteristics, that correlated with
increased prevalence of these disorders. According to these findings, societies that do not
encourage women to develop self-sufficiency, competence and assertiveness, are more
likely to have a high number of agoraphobic women.

Aim: To investigate a possible connection between countries’ scores on the Hofstede

Masculinity-Femininity scale, and these countries’ prevalence of agoraphobia. The main
hypothesis was that Masculinity scores would correlate positively with agoraphobia
prevalence.

Method: Eleven countries participated in the collection of data which took place in the mid
1990s. The participants were students (volunteers) from the following countries: Australia,
East Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala , Hungary, Italy , Japan, Spain, Sweden, and
Venezuela. Participants anonymously completed the Fear Survey Scale for Agoraphobia,
then the mean value for each country was found and the results correlated to the Hofstede
Masculinity score.

Results:

Agoraphobia scores correlated with Masculinity scores with r =+ 0.72. This is a moderately
high correlation and implies a strong relationship between the two factors.