Precarious Manhood Predicts Support for Aggressive Policies and Politicians

Abstract

Precarious manhood (PM) theory posits that males are expected to actively maintain their reputations as “real men.” We propose that men’s concern about failing to meet masculine standards leads them to embrace policies and politicians that signal strength and toughness—or what we term political aggression. Three correlational studies support this claim. In Study 1, men’s fear of failing to meet masculine expectations predicted their support for aggressive policies (e.g., the death penalty), but not policies lacking aggressive features (e.g., affirmative action). Studies 2 and 3 utilized Google searches to assess the relationship between regional levels of PM and real-world electoral behavior. The use of search terms related to masculine anxieties correlated with Donald Trump’s vote share in the 2016 general election (Study 2) and, confirming preregistered predictions, with Republican candidates’ vote shares in 2018 congressional elections (Study 3). We close by discussing potential sources of variation in PM.

The precarious masculinity of firearm ownership.

“…Such threats can come from having to perform an atypical gendered behavior such as braiding hair (Bosson et al, 2009) or from a direct challenge such as receiving negative feedback about one's status as a man (Vandello et al, 2008). Importantly, in accordance with the PMP, a large number of studies have indicated that men react significantly more aggressively, compared to women, when their traditional gender role is threatened (Bosson et al, 2009;DiMuccio & Knowles, 2020;Vandello & Bosson, 2013;Vandello et al, 2008).…”

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

“…Some researchers have described the attainment of masculinity, especially hegemonic masculinity, as "precarious" showing that the achievement of the expectations placed upon men about what it means to be a man are more precarious for men than is the achievement of the expectations placed upon women about what it means to be a woman (see Bosson et al, 2009;Levant, 2011;Vandello & Bosson, 2013;Vandello & Cohen, 2003Vandello, Cohen, et al, 2009). The more that men conform to these gender role expectations and the more stress/ conflict (see Eisler & Skidmore, 1987) that they experience if their masculinity is called into question, the greater men's propensities toward aggression are (DiMuccio & Knowles, 2021;Jin et al, 2021;Merino et al, 2021). This is further illustrated by many of the existing scales measuring ideologies related to hegemonic masculinity including threat (e.g., Masculine Contingency Scale, Burkley et al, 2016) and/or violence as a category (e.g., Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory, Parent & Moradi, 2011).…”

Heightened religiosity proactively and reactively responds to the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe: Novel insights from the parasite-stress theory of sociality and the behavioral immune system theory

“…Internet query data are valuable sources for psychological researchers to gain insights into real-time psychological states across millions of people ( Cheung et al, 2017 ) to examine the predictions of psychological theories outside laboratories (e.g., Adam-Troian & Arciszewski, 2020 ; Adam-Troian et al, 2021 , Adam-Troian et al, 2022 ; Alper, 2019 ; Alper et al, 2020 ; Cheng et al, 2020 ; DiMuccio & Knowles, 2021 ; Ma & Ye, 2022 ; Pelham et al, 2018 ). Thus, this research used Google Trends, a big data tool tracking real-time online searches on specific topics ( Arora et al, 2019 ), to capture people’s real-time intrinsic religiosity ( Alper, 2019 , Pelham et al, 2018 ).…”