“Men should watch football games instead of soap operas”: Masculine role norm endorsement as a population-level construct associated with harmful gambling

Men experience an increased risk of harmful gambling. As with other determinants of gambling harms, this can be due to a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors, such as the construct of masculinity, which cuts across these factors. Here we focus on a facet of gender ideology, the endorsement of masculine role norms about how men should behave (as measured by the five-item MRNI-VB scale; e.g., “Men should watch football games instead of soap operas”). These role norms can be endorsed by anyone, and are therefore distinct from gender identity. We conducted a cross-sectional online study (data retained for 4193 participants reporting past 12-month gambling engagement), exploring associations between masculine role norm endorsement and harmful gambling among men (n = 2070), and among women-and-others (n = 2123). Masculine role norm endorsement as measured by the MRNI-VB scale consistently predicted higher levels of gambling harm (as measured by the Problem Gambling Severity Index), across three models containing from zero to 11 other distal predictors of harmful gambling (e.g., race/ethnicity, impulsivity, social support). Identifying as a man did not significantly improve model fit, and there were no significant interactions between masculine role norm endorsement and identifying as a man. Men and women-and-others with higher rates of masculine role norm endorsement were therefore equally likely to experience higher rates of gambling harm. This points toward gender ideology as a novel population-level risk factor for harmful gambling, that may have been missed by previous research’s focus on gender identity.