Shyness and toughness: Unique and moderated relations with men's emotional inexpression

The author examined the role of toughness (an aspect of masculine ideology) and shyness in predicting correlates of men's emotional inexpression. Results showed that shyness and toughness had an additive role in predicting men's general difficulties in emotional expression and in expression of affection to other men. Results also showed that toughness moderated the relationship between shyness and some aspects of emotional inexpression. Shy men who adhered to a gender role norm of toughness reported less tendency to facilitate self-disclosure from others and general difficulty in emotional expression. The findings suggest that counseling of shy men includes both a focus on anxiety reduction and gender role reeducation.