Restrictive emotionality and mental help-seeking intentions: The mediating role of perceived social support in Indian men

Male rates of professional mental health help-seeking are always lower, and restrictive masculine norms, especially restrictive emotionality, are found to be the key obstacles. Although the current literature associates emotional inhibition with decreased help-seeking, there is a lack of research on how these processes work in collectivist cultural contexts like India. A quantitative correlational design with 200 participants was used in the current research to examine the connections between restrictive emotionality, perceived social support, and mental help-seeking intentions in Indian men aged 18-35 years. It also tested the mediating role of perceived social support in the relationship between restrictive emotionality and help-seeking intentions, and the independent predictive role of various sources of support on help-seeking behaviour. The analysis was done using Spearman’s Rank Order Correlations, multiple linear regression, and mediation analysis using PROCESS (Model 4). The findings indicated that restrictive emotionality was negatively and significantly related to perceived social support and help-seeking intentions. Nevertheless, perceived social support was not a significant predictor of help-seeking intentions or a mediator of this association. Notably, family support was the only important positive predictor of help-seeking intentions. These results indicate that although emotional restraint compromises help-seeking, family approval that is culturally ingrained is central to the justification of professional psychological assistance. The research identifies the necessity of culturally responsive interventions that would consider masculine emotional norms and involve family systems to encourage Indian men to seek help.