The Nurturing Father: The Role of Fathers’ Masculine Ideology, Caregiving Beliefs, and Alexithymia

Prior research has shown that endorsement of traditional masculine ideologies (TMI) contributes to men’s restrictive emotionality, often conceptualized as normative male alexithymia. Among fathers, greater endorsement of TMI has been associated with decreased endorsement of nurturing role beliefs and reduced emotional engagement with children. However, the quality of fathers’ emotional responses to children’s distress remains underexplored. The present study therefore examined whether fathers’ endorsement of TMI is associated with their use of expressive encouragement (EE) in response to children’s negative emotions, a response characterized by validation and support of emotional expression. It was hypothesized that greater endorsement of TMI would be associated with lower EE, indirectly through decreased nurturing role beliefs and increased normative male alexithymia. Using self-report and vignette-based measures, findings partially supported the proposed model, with an indirect effect through nurturing role beliefs but not normative male alexithymia.