“Be a Man”: The Role of Social Pressure in Eliciting Men’s Aggressive Cognition (original) (raw)
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Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 2012
Past research linking gender conformity and physical aggression has largely focused on men as both perpetrators and victims. Furthermore, extant literature emphasizes the role of individual differences in theorizing and assigning meaning to aggressive interactions. The current study aims to build on the sparse literature on victimization of nonconforming women while rooting this vein of inquiry more firmly in dynamic sociocognitive models of interactive behavior. In the current study, 60 collegiate men participated in a sham aggression paradigm against a female confederate whose appearance was manipulated to exhibit either "masculine" or "feminine" characteristics. Aggression was measured in terms of frequency, intensity, and duration of electric shocks ostensibly administered by the participant to his fictional opponent. Results indicated that low masculine conforming men evinced higher levels of aggression against the feminine opponent than they did toward a masculine opponent. Findings are discussed in terms of the unique influence of the female gender role as it relates to variability in men's conformity to masculinity and risk of aggressive responding. The purported protective effects of positive masculinity are also discussed.
Conforming to Masculine Norms: Evidence for Validity among Adult Men and Women
Sex Roles, 2006
Assessment of masculinity as an ideological belief system (MI) has become increasingly popular. Validation of MI measures and subsequent research has relied heavily on undergraduate samples. In the present study, convergent and divergent validity of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (Mahalik et al., Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 4: 3–25, 2003) were examined among a convenience sample of 688 male and female adults who were divided into four groups (undergraduates, younger adults, middle-aged adults, older adults). Across groups, convergent validity was suggested by consistent relations with sexism, and divergent validity was suggested by consistent nonsignificant relations with masculine attributes. Results suggest that generalizations among male groups can be made with caution and that generalizations to women may be appropriate when the focal constructs are unrelated to women or femininity.
Sex Roles, 2009
Two studies test the hypotheses that men, relative to women: 1) see manhood as a more elusive, impermanent state than womanhood, and 2) understand aggression as a means of proving or re-establishing threatened manhood, but not threatened womanhood. In Study 1 (N=175 Northeastern U.S. undergraduates), men's (but not women's) sentence completions revealed tendencies to define manhood by actions and womanhood by enduring traits. In Study 2 (N= 113 Southeastern U.S. undergraduates), men were more likely than women to explain a man's physical aggression in primarily situational terms, whereas men and women did not differ in the attributions they made for a woman's physical aggression. Results suggest that men perceive active and aggressive behaviors as integral parts of manhood and its defense.
Development of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory
Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 2003
This article describes the construction of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI), and 5 studies that examined its psychometric properties. Factor analysis indicated 11 distinct factors: Winning, Emotional Control, Risk-Taking, Violence, Dominance, Playboy, Self-Reliance, Primacy of Work, Power Over Women, Disdain for Homosexuals, and Pursuit of Status. Results from Studies 2-5 indicated that the CMNI had strong internal consistency estimates and good differential validity comparing men with women and groups of men on healthrelated questions; all of the CMNI subscales were significantly and positively related to other masculinity-related measures, with several subscales being related significantly and positively to psychological distress, social dominance, aggression, and the desire to be more muscular, and significantly and negatively to attitudes toward psychological help seeking and social desirability; and CMNI scores had high test-retest estimates for a 2-3 week period.
Gender Issues
Contemporary evidence suggests that masculinity is changing, adopting perceived feminine traits in the process. Implications of this new masculine norm on gender relations remain unclear. Our research aims to better understand the influence of changing masculine norms on men’s endorsement of gender-hierarchy-legitimizing ideologies. Based on Precarious Manhood Theory and Social Role Theory, we conducted two quasi-experimental studies (N = 412) in which we first assessed heterosexual men's motivation to protect traditional masculinity. Then, we informed them that men’s gender norms are becoming more feminine (feminization norm condition) or are remaining masculine in a traditional sense (traditional norm condition). In the third (baseline-control) condition, participants received no information about men’s gender norms. Finally, we assessed the extent to which participants endorsed gender-hierarchy-legitimizing ideologies, namely sexism (Study 1) and masculinist beliefs (Study 2)...
Precarious Manhood and Its Links to Action and Aggression
Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2011
Unlike womanhood, manhood is widely viewed as a status that is elusive (it must be earned) and tenuous (it must be demonstrated repeatedly through actions). This focus on the structure—rather than the content—of gender roles can shed new light on men’s use of action and physical aggression. Here, we review theory and research connecting manhood, action, and aggression. We interpret men’s aggression and aggressive displays as behaviors that effectively demonstrate manhood and thus quell men’s concerns about their gender status. Moreover, we suggest that situational and cultural factors that heighten the precariousness of manhood also increase the likelihood of male aggression.
Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 2015
Studies of the association between masculinity and sexual aggression have found that men who possess hostile masculine or hypermasculine attitudes are more likely to self-report sexual aggression against women. There is limited predictability of behavior using such attitudinal scales because they do not measure how masculinity functions, and recent research emphasizes the social construction of masculinity by measuring social role norms indicative of hegemonic masculinity, gender role stress and threat, and consequent responses. A social constructivist approach allows for a greater understanding of how variables at the individual, situational, and societal levels can combine to predict SA. This approach also leads to suggestions that prevention efforts should focus on changing situational and societal variables in addition to trying to promote attitude change.
Women’s preference for masculine traits is disrupted by images of male-on-female aggression
Women’s preferences for men’s masculinized faces and voices were assessed after women (n = 331) were primed with images of male-on-male aggression, male-on-female aggression, pathogens, and neutral scenes. Male-on-male aggression and pathogen primes were associated with increased preference for masculine traits, but the same effect emerged in the neutral condition. We show the increased preference for masculine traits was due to repeated exposure to these traits, not the priming images themselves. Images of male-on-female aggression were an exception; these elicited feelings of disgust and anger appeared to disrupt the preference for masculinized traits. The results suggest women process men’s facial and vocal traits as signals of aggressive potential and lose any preference for these traits with cues indicating men might direct this aggression toward them.
Perceptions of Aggression are Colored by Gender Roles
The Psychological Record, 2014
The present study examined the impact of gender role perceptions on ratings of aggressiveness. Male participants completed a laboratory aggression paradigm and were asked to rate the aggressiveness of their (bogus) opponent. Opponents were clearly identified as male or female and feminine or masculine. Further, all aggressive actions by the bogus opponent were standardized to be the same. Participants were significantly more likely to rate masculine opponents as aggressive, compared to feminine opponents, regardless of the gender of the opponent. These results imply that the subjective perception of aggression from others appears to be more strongly influenced by the gender role, rather than gender, of an aggressor. Keywords Genderroles. Gender. Aggression. Stereotypes. Attributions Gender differences in aggression have been extensively studied. Generally, men are perceived as more aggressive, men score higher on self-report measures of aggression, and men are more likely to be the targets of most aggressive acts (e.g., Baron and Richardson 1994; Richardson and Green 1999; Harris 1995). However, some researchers have argued that gender as a binary distinction (male vs. female) does not sufficiently account for differences in aggression and perceptions of aggression. These researchers have suggested that gender roles-an individual's level of masculinity and/or femininity-are better predictors of aggression than gender in and of itself (Hammock and Richardson 1992; Richardson and Hammock 2007; Spence and Helmreich 1978).