This work examined whether the endorsement of the culturally idealized form of masculinity—hegemonic masculinity (HM)—accounted for unique variance in men’s and women’s support for Donald Trump across seven studies (n = 2,007). Consistent with our theoretical backdrop, in the days (Studies 1 and 2) and months (Studies 3 through 6) following the 2016 American presidential election, women’s and men’s endorsement of HM predicted voting for and evaluations of Trump, over and above political party affiliation, gender, race, and education. These effects held when controlling for respondents’ trust in the government, in contrast to a populist explanation of support for Trump. In addition, as conceptualized, HM was associated with less trust in the government (Study 3), more sexism (Study 4), more racism (Study 5), and more xenophobia (Study 6) but continued to predict unique variance in evaluations of Trump when controlling for each of these factors. Whereas HM predicted evaluations of Trump, across studies, social and prejudiced attitudes predicted evaluations of his democratic challengers: Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. We replicate the findings of Studies 1 through 6 using a nationally representative sample of the United States (Study 7) 50 days prior to the 2020 presidential election. The findings highlight the importance of psychological examinations of masculinity as a cultural ideology to understand how men’s and women’s endorsement of HM legitimizes patriarchal dominance and reinforces gender, race, and class-based hierarchies via candidate support.

Using a gendered psychology of health approach, we examine the effects of the culturally idealized form of masculinity—hegemonic masculinity—for both men and women’s health attitudes and behaviors. Using data collected across four studies ( N = 805) during the COVID-19 pandemic, we found that stronger endorsement of hegemonic masculinity related to health attitudes antithetical to mitigation strategies (e.g. more engagement in risky behaviors, less support for federal mandates) and evaluations of how political leaders have responded to COVID-19. These effects did not differ by gender suggesting that hegemonic masculinity has implications for both men and women’s health.

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In three studies ( N = 886), we hypothesized and found that women’s and men’s endorsement of the culturally idealized form of masculinity, hegemonic masculinity (HM), predicted more positive evaluations of a political figure accused of sexual violence (Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh) and more negative evaluations of the women who made accusations of sexual assault. HM predicted these evaluations over and above political party, gender, race, education, and sexism (Study 1), rape myth endorsement (Study 2), and the likelihood to sexually harass (Study 3). Implications for the maintenance of the status quo and the prevalence of sexual violence against women in the United States are discussed.

Prior research highlights the relationship between anti-gay prejudice and masculinity: straight men (1) avoid being misclassified as gay and (2) experience increased anti-gay attitudes when their masculinity is threatened. We hypothesized that a sexual advance from a gay man would constitute a threat to straight man's masculinity. Four experiments and a cross-cultural replication (N = 1407) manipulated perceptions of a samesex sexual advance and found that straight men experienced greater public discomfort and subsequent anger. This anger predicted both non-aggressive (e.g., avoidance) and aggressive (e.g., likelihood to use violence) compensatory acts of masculinity. These findings were not ameliorated by reasserting heterosexuality (Study 2), were unique to sexual advances by gay men, not straight women (Study 3), and were replicated in the United States (Study 4a) and the United Kingdom (Study 4b). Findings suggest that a same-sex sexual advance threatens straight men's masculinity and implications for future research are discussed.