You don't want kids?!: Exploring evaluations of those without children

Relationship between gender roles, motherhood beliefs and mental health

Gender roles, as social constructs, play a significant role in shaping individuals' beliefs and attitudes, influencing various aspects of life, including perceptions and expectations surrounding motherhood. These beliefs, acquired through culture and society, can have an impact on our mental well-being. This research consists of three independent studies conducted in the Mexican population. In the first and second studies, we extended the Attitudes Towards Gender Roles Scale and Motherhood Beliefs Scale and performed psychometric validation through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The aim of including additional items in both scales was to update these attitudes and beliefs in Mexican culture to avoid the traditionalist bias in both instruments. Finally, the third study examined the relationship between the new versions of both scales and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and Positive Psychological Functioning as indicators of mental health in women and men with and without children. Our findings revealed a significant association between higher levels of traditional attitudes towards gender roles and traditional motherhood beliefs, as well as between non-traditional attitudes towards gender roles and non-traditional beliefs about motherhood. Interestingly, we observed that traditional attitudes toward gender roles were associated with lower anxiety and depression scores, while non-traditional attitudes were associated with higher levels of depression. Furthermore, individuals who embraced non-traditional attitudes towards both gender roles and motherhood beliefs tended to exhibit better psychological well-being in all subsamples. Additionally, women generally showed lesser alignment with traditional attitudes towards both gender roles and motherhood beliefs compared to men. However, women reported higher rates of depression and anxiety, along with lower psychological well-being scores, than their male counterparts. This highlights the significant influence that traditional cultural norms about gender roles and motherhood have on women's mental health, underscoring the need for a deeper understanding and reevaluation of these traditional constructs in society.

Stigmatization of Voluntarily Childfree Women and Men in the UK

Abstract. People who choose not to have children may face negative social judgment. Using a UK sample, Study 1 ( N = 199) successfully replicated Ashburn-Nardo’s (2017) finding that childfree targets are perceived as less psychologically fulfilled than targets with children. The effect, however, appeared limited to expected decision regret rather than general fulfillment, which was later confirmed in Study 2 ( N = 329). In contrast to Ashburn-Nardo , our results did not indicate that moral outrage mediates the effect (Study 1), but exploratory findings suggested that perceivers who intend to have children of their own perceive the childfree as morally inferior and less likable (Study 2). Participants’ endorsement of conservative values was not consistently related to negative perceptions of childfree targets.