“Act like a real man!” a novel examination of how socializing others to masculine honor-based norms bolsters men’s reputations.

Abstract

Masculine honor beliefs describe an ideology whereby people have the expectation that men should be protectors of their family and partner. Previous research has shown that men who adhere to these expectations have their social reputations bolstered while men who do not adhere have their social reputations diminished. We examined how United States-based English-speaking participants (n = 247; 114 men, 126 women, 2 gender nonbinary, 5 did not report) would perceive a man who was confronted (or not) by a bystander for behaving in honor-consistent versus honor-inconsistent ways. We predicted (although our findings did not support) that participants' own perceptions of the man as honorable would be exacerbated when the man was confronted. Instead, consistent with previous research, participants' perceptions of the man were bolstered when he behaved in honor-consistent and diminished when he behaved in honor-inconsistent ways, but this was not affected by how a bystander responded (confronting him or not). Most notably, we also examined how participants perceived the bystander and showed that if a bystander fails to enforce and socialize traditional honor expectations (i.e., confronting a man behaving in honor-inconsistent ways), his own honor can be minimized similarly to if he, himself, had failed to act in honor-consistent ways. Public Significance StatementMasculine honor beliefs describe expectations for men's behavior in society as well as how people should respond when men do not adhere to these expectations. People who do not reinforce these behaviors are perceived more negatively by people who hold masculine honor beliefs. These expectations have important implications for understanding men's aggression in society.

The masculinity-based model of Aggressive Retaliation in Society (MARS).

“…There is very little existing research aimed at understanding the expectations for children as a function of masculine honor ideologies and we hope that our model will promote additional research in this area. Although some of the existing scales measuring masculine honor beliefs do include items about the socialization of children (e.g., Saucier et al, 2016; “You would want your son to stand up to bullies”; see also O’Dea et al, in press), very little research has examined how strong these expectations are. Some recent unpublished research by our laboratory team (O’Dea et al, Under review), is beginning to show that, while masculine honor ideologies are associated with greater support of children responding aggressively to threats and insults, these effects are similar for young boys and young girls, but neither boys nor girls are held to these expectations as higher masculine honor ideologies were associated with more positive perceptions of children regardless of whether they aggressed, sought help from parents/teachers, or did not respond.…”

“…As such, these cultural and ideological expectations for violence/aggression may only manifest in specific situations. Generally, people are expected to be polite, engage positively with their community, and to socialize others with these expectations (Cohen et al, 1999; Harinck et al, 2013; O’Dea et al, in press). However, if others do not afford them the same politeness, people, especially men, experience threat to their masculine self-image and even negative perceptions from others (O’Dea et al, 2017, 2018).…”

He's a narcissistic, lying man-slore! An examination of descriptions of men on the gossip website The Dirty.

“…Men's reputations have been mainly studied in terms of defending their masculinity and toughness (e.g., Barnes et al, 2012; see also Bock & Brown, 2021 for a review), as well as how they uphold honor culture (e.g., loyalty and integrity, Bock & Brown, 2021; O’Dea et al, 2022). One key issue is that men's reputations are typically connected to verifiable qualities such as physical ability, social status, and wealth, which means that it is quite easy for men to defend any challenges to their reputations (Baumeister et al, 2017).…”

Forgive and forget? Honor-oriented individuals are less forgiving of transgressing peers

“…Individuals in most honor cultures (e.g., Southern U.S., Turkey) today no longer rely primarily on herding or live detached from law enforcement, but several social mechanisms such as institutional policies that sanction sudden bursts of aggression in response to insults (e. g., Cohen et al, 1996), socialization processes whereby boys from an early age learn traditional forms of masculinity (O'Dea, Rapp, Brand, & Greco-Henderson, 2022;Vandello & Cohen, 2008), and the rapid exchanging of ideas online, travel, and globalization (Saucier et al, 2016) have helped keep masculine honor beliefs alive within these cultures, and allowed their transmission to individuals outside of honor cultures who may also learn, adopt and adhere to these beliefs (Saucier et al, 2016;Saucier & McManus, 2014). Noting these dynamics, recent studies have conceptualized and measured masculine honor beliefs as an individual difference variable (e.g., Imura et al, 2014;Saucier et al, 2016;Barnes, Brown, & Osterman, 2012), and used samples of men and women from honor (e.g., Southern U.S., Turkey) and non-honor cultures (e.g., UK, Northern U.S.) to demonstrate that higher endorsement of masculine honor beliefs correlate with greater support for men's vengeful and aggressive responses to threats (e.g., Saucier et al, 2015Saucier et al, , 2016Vandello & Cohen, 2008;van Osch et al, 2013), and perceiving men who choose to walk away from insults and fights as less manly and honorable (weak, wimpy, and embarrassing) and those who choose to confront and respond aggressively as more manly and honorable (strong, respectable, and loyal) (O'Dea, Bueno, & Saucier, 2017;O'Dea, Chalman, Castro Bueno, & Saucier, 2018;O'Dea, Rapp, Brand, & Greco-Henderson, 2022). Masculine honor beliefs may also warrant women's aggressive responses; for example women who engage in reactive physical aggression in response to insults are perceived more positively by masculine honor-endorsing men and women (Chalman et al, 2021).…”