Men underestimate each other’s willingness to seek help for depression, study finds

Many men underestimate how willing other men are to seek help for depression, which may discourage them from seeking help themselves, according to a new study published in Sex Roles.

Despite the availability of mental health services, many people experiencing depression delay or avoid seeking help. Hege H. Bye and colleagues investigated whether one barrier might be a form of pluralistic ignorance, where individuals mistakenly believe that others in their group are less likely to seek help than they themselves are. Prior research suggests people often misjudge how others perceive mental illness, assuming stigma is more widespread than it is. These misperceptions can shape behavior and hinder treatment-seeking.

The researchers were particularly interested in how gender affects these misperceptions. Past studies have yielded mixed findings on whether men seek help less than women, but cultural stereotypes tend to portray men as less inclined to pursue psychological support.

The researchers conducted two preregistered experiments using large, population-based samples of Norwegian adults. Experiment 1 utilized a between-groups experimental design in which 2,042 participants were randomly assigned to read a vignette describing either a male (Kristian) or female (Kristine) character experiencing symptoms of depression. The vignettes were based on diagnostic criteria for a depressive episode from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) and adapted from prior research.

After reading the vignette, participants answered two key questions. First, they rated how likely they would be to seek help from a doctor or a psychologist if they felt like the character. Then, they rated how likely they believed “most men” or “most women” would seek such help if in the same situation. Both questions were rated separately for doctor and psychologist, using a six-point scale from “highly unlikely” to “highly likely.”

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Experiment 2 focused on disclosure rather than help-seeking. It used a 2 (social context: friends vs. colleagues) × 2 (vignette character gender: male vs. female) × 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) experimental design. Participants (N = 1,528) read a vignette about a character (Anne or Arne) who had sought help from a general practitioner for depression. Depending on the condition, the vignette described either a workplace or social context in which the character was in conversation with colleagues or friends.

After reading the vignette, participants answered three fixed-order questions: what the character would likely do (descriptive norm), what the character should do (personal normative belief), and what they themselves would do (behavioral intention). Each item required participants to choose between disclosing truthfully or concealing the help-seeking.

Experiment 1 revealed that men reported lower willingness to seek professional help for depression than women. Specifically, men were less likely than women to say they would contact either a doctor or a psychologist. Further, men underestimated other men’s help-seeking willingness, demonstrating pluralistic ignorance. Men believed that “most men” were less likely to seek help than they themselves were. Women also underestimated men’s willingness to seek help, and to an even greater extent than men did.

In contrast, women’s perceptions of other women were accurate—they did not systematically underestimate other women’s likelihood of seeking help. Supporting this, women’s own willingness to seek help matched their estimates of “most women.” There was also evidence that perceptions of others’ help-seeking correlated with individuals’ own reported willingness, particularly when the perceived norms were about the same gender group (e.g., men’s own help-seeking correlated strongly with what they thought other men would do). This pattern supports the idea that perceived norms shape behavior.

Experiment 2 showed that men were significantly less likely than women to say they would disclose having sought help for depression, whether to friends or colleagues. This suggests that men may contribute to a more hidden information environment around male help-seeking, which could fuel the pluralistic ignorance observed in Experiment 1.

Women rated the male character as less likely to disclose help-seeking than the female character, both in friend and workplace contexts. Men showed a similar pattern, but the difference was not statistically significant. This indicates that women held stronger misperceptions about men’s disclosure behavior.

However, contrary to expectations, both men and women believed that both male and female characters should disclose—personal normative beliefs favored openness across the board. In other words, the reluctance to disclose was not rooted in beliefs that disclosure was wrong, but likely in anticipated stigma or discomfort. This helps explain how an environment of silence around male help-seeking might persist, even if people endorse disclosure in principle.

The authors note that participants’ own mental health status was not assessed, which could influence both help-seeking and perceptions of others’ behavior.

The research, “Men’s Help-Seeking Willingness and Disclosure of Depression: Experimental Evidence for the Role of Pluralistic Ignorance,” was authored by Hege H. Bye, Frida L. Måseidvåg, and Samantha M. Harris.