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Men act more “macho” when masculinity is threatened,
study finds
Aug. 7, 2005
Courtesy Cornell University
and World Science staff
A scientist set out to prove an old adage of pop psychology: men will overcompensate by acting excessively “manly” when their masculinity is threatened. But to do it, he had to play mind tricks on some unsuspecting men.
It seems he got what he wanted.
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Willer
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Men in his study were found to profess greater support of the Iraq war if they were told that their recent responses on a questionnaire marked them as “feminine” types.
What they weren’t told was
that this information about their masculinity had no factual basis.
These men also voiced more anti-gay attitudes and greater willingness to buy a big car than other men, according to the
researcher, Robb Willer, a sociology doctoral candidate at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
“If you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq War more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV [sport utility vehicle],”
Willer said.
Willer added that he plans to present his findings Aug. 15 at the American Sociological Association’s 100th annual meeting in Philadelphia.
“Masculine overcompensation is the idea that men who are insecure about their masculinity will behave in an extremely masculine way as
compensation,” Willer explained. “I wanted to test this idea and also explore whether overcompensation could help explain some attitudes like support for war and animosity to
homosexuals.”
Willer administered a gender identity survey to a sample of male and female Cornell undergraduates in the fall of 2004. Participants were randomly assigned to receive feedback that their responses indicated either a masculine or a feminine identity. While women’s responses were unchanged regardless of the feedback they received, men’s reactions “were strongly affected by this feedback,” Willer said.
“Masculinity-threatened men also reported feeling more ashamed, guilty, upset and hostile than did masculinity-confirmed men,” said Willer in a report on his findings.
The notion that masculinity-threatened men overcompensate is rooted in the theories of Sigmund Freud, the 19th-and early-20th century psychologist. The idea has become a common part of household wisdom, though, with the more
pro-women’s-rights culture that
has established itself in the the last few decades in Western societies.
Nonetheless, the idea still hasn’t been properly tested, Willer said. He conducted a test with 111 Cornell undergraduate students.
He questioned them about their political attitudes, including how they felt about a same-sex marriage ban and their support for President Bush’s handling of the Iraq War.
“I created composites from subjects’ answers to these and other questions,” he said. “I also gave subjects a car-buying vignette, presented as part of a study of purchasing a new car.”
Masculinity-threatened participants also showed more interest in buying an SUV. “There were no increases for other types of cars,” Willer said.
The study produced “the predicted results,” he said. “The intention of the study was to explore whether masculine overcompensation exists and where. But the point isn’t to suggest these are the only factors that can explain these behaviors. Likewise, there may be a wide variety of other behaviors that could increase when men are concerned about their levels of masculinity.”
Willer said he and a colleague are planning additional research on subjects’ attitudes regarding violence toward women, using the same method for manipulating masculine insecurity.
“I’m planning another follow-up to the study that involves taking testosterone samples from participants” to see if testosterone levels are a factor in this process, he added.
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