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Agency and Communion Related to Mental Health in Japanese Young Adults

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Abstract

Based on Bakan’s (1966) theory, Helgeson (1994) presented a conceptual model of the relationships of biological sex, agency, and communion with psychological and physical well-being. This study was designed to examine the relationships of mitigated and unmitigated agency (M, M-) /communion (F, F-) with mental health in Japanese young adults. Participants were 602 (247 men, 355 women) undergraduate students and vocational school students in Japan. The average age of the participants was 20.0 years (SD=4.1). The results showed that communion (F) was positively associated with social support, unmitigated communion (F-) was strongly and positively associated with dysphoria for both men and women, unmitigated agency (M-) was also positively associated with dysphoria for women, and agency (M) was negatively associated with dysphoria for women. Both M and F were positively associated and F- was negatively associated with self-esteem for both men and women. M may moderate F-, and social support may moderate M-, for women. Thus our findings partially supported Helgeson’s model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Okayama, 700-8558, Japan

    Kumi Hirokawa

  2. Department of Psychology, Kobe Shoin Women’s University, 1-2-1 Shinohara Obanoyama, Nada, Kobe, Hyogo, 657-0015, Japan

    Itsuko Dohi

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  1. Kumi Hirokawa
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  2. Itsuko Dohi
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Correspondence to Kumi Hirokawa.

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Table 5

Table 5 Communion-agency scale.
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Hirokawa, K., Dohi, I. Agency and Communion Related to Mental Health in Japanese Young Adults. Sex Roles 56, 517–524 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9190-8

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