A UK study of men's health and masculinity hints that young men who don't play soccer or other contact sports may seek that "tough guy" feeling by downing a six-pack or two during the game.

A German soccer fan wears a football-design attachment on his nose in Frankfurt ahead of the start of the 2006 World Cup. [Reuters]

Psychology researchers who conducted in-depth interviews with 31 young men in the 18-to-21 age range from a variety of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds found that men may use one type of typically masculine behavior to compensate for another.

"For example, men who are not confident in their sporting abilities may try and make up for this by drinking excessively," said Dr. Richard de Visser from the University of Sussex who led the research, which was sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council.

The aim of their research, de Visser told Reuters Health, is to look at "how men actively construct a masculine identity via healthy and unhealthy behaviors."

"Rather than masculinity being a singular thing," de Visser reported, "there are a variety of ways of being masculine, and a range of ways that men test and demonstrate their masculinity -- some of these are healthy (e.g., sports) and some are not (e.g., excessive drinking, risk taking, etc.)"

There isn't "a simple link between masculinity and unhealthy behavior. It all depends on how men use their masculinity," de Visser said.

The study also found that men can use credit in one masculine domain to resist pressure to engage in other masculine behaviors. For example, "good sportsmen said that they were able to resist pressure to drink or drink excessively," according to de Visser.

"The flip side of this is that men who feel that they are not masculine could use unhealthy behaviors like drinking to gain 'masculine' credit," he added.

Encouraging men to engage in healthy masculine behaviors, de Visser predicts, will reduce a perceived need to engage in unhealthy masculine behavior, which may have help curb anti-social behavior among young men such as binge-drinking, violence and illicit drug-use.

The full results of the study are due to be published later this year.