The Psychology of Marianismo: A Review of Empirical Research

Resumen

 The present narrative review seeks to explain the roles and expectations of women in Hispanic cultures. For this purpose, we focused on marianismo, which is generally defined as the concept that women should be spiritually family leaders and submissive to their partners. Marianismo is a cultural script deeply rooted in Roman Catholicism and embodies female gender norms and expectations in Hispanic culture. Unlike machismo, marianismo has not been widely researched. To summarize the existing literature, we reviewed 20 quantitative and qualitative studies using APA PsychInfo, EBSCO Research Databases, JSTOR, and SAGE Journals. Both positive and negative psychological outcomes were linked to Latinas high in marianismo. In particular, Latinas are less likely to abuse substances and more academically motivated but are also more likely to suffer from depression, tolerate intimate partner violence, and practice unsafe sex. However, various factors limit the validity of the literature in marianismo, such as lack of causality and sampling generalizability. Most participants were exclusively Mexican women living in the United States and Canada. Further research is needed to fully understand the effects of marianismo on Latinxs, considering that these studies underline its significant influence on Latinxs.