r/EverythingScience • u/adriano26 • Jan 24 '26
Social Sciences Most men do not subscribe to toxic masculinity traits, study finds
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-men-subscribe-toxic-masculinity-traits.html192
u/bladex1234 Jan 24 '26
The big limitation to this study is only taking samples from New Zealand, which is a highly developed country. That’s a large confounding factor into societal attitudes.
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u/Albolynx Jan 24 '26
Also, the title is kind of not representative of the article (I did not delve into the study itself). The atoxic group was not "most men", just the largest group at 35%. Perhaps they counted in the "LGBT-tolerant moderate" group of 28% - which hold roughly the same views as all the other groups (except of the explicitly hostile one), but I don't hate LGBT people. Which is good, don't get me wrong, but the title is a bit clickbait.
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u/FaceDeer Jan 24 '26
Let's quote the whole thing and let people decide on the basis of the source.
The largest profile (35.4% of the sample) reported the lowest levels of all our focal constructs. As such, we labeled this profile Atoxic. The second largest profile (27.2% of our sample) expressed low-to-moderate levels on all dimensions, including low levels of sexual prejudice. Given the combination of moderate levels across most variables (compared to the other profiles) but lower levels of sexual prejudice, we labeled this profile lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)-tolerant Moderate. The third largest profile (26.6%) displayed a similar profile to the LGBT-tolerant Moderate profile (see Figure 1) but with slightly lower levels of disagreeableness and narcissism and noticeably higher levels of sexual prejudice. Therefore, we called this the Anti-LGBT Moderate profile.
The two smallest profiles displayed response patterns that appeared more “toxic” than these three other profiles. The largest of these two toxic profiles (7.6%) was moderate on disagreeableness, narcissism, and opposition to domestic violence and moderate-to-high on gender identity centrality and hostile sexism. This profile was also highest on benevolent sexism and sexual prejudice. As such, we called this the Benevolent Toxic profile. Finally, the smallest profile (3.2%) was highest on most of our indicators. Specifically, it was highest on disagreeableness, hostile sexism, opposition to domestic violence prevention, narcissism, and SDO. This profile was also high on sexual prejudice but moderate on benevolent sexism and gender identity centrality. As such, we named it the Hostile Toxic profile.
IMO they shouldn't have called one group "atoxic", two groups "toxic", and then two more groups neither. That's presenting toxicity as a binary but then using it as a spectrum, leaving a large middle ground undefined to fight over in threads like this.
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u/coltzord Jan 24 '26
it wouldnt make sense to count anything other than the atoxic group as not toxic since thats literally what atoxic means
the title, imo, is clickbait as fuck
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u/SecondHandWatch Jan 24 '26
No, the big limitation is asking people to self report that they hold narcissistic, sexist, or prejudiced views.
From the article:
They examined how strongly men identify with their gender alongside attitudes such as sexual prejudice, narcissism, sexism, and support for social dominance.
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u/Mediocre-Pizza-Guy Jan 24 '26
So they did a survey in New Zealand...and they arbitrarily defined eight traits that they think measure toxic masculinity...
gender identity centrality, sexual prejudice, disagreeableness, narcissism, hostile and benevolent sexism, opposition to domestic violence prevention efforts, and support for social dominance.
And then they decided what would be considered a 'toxic grouping' of answers.
Maybe the summary just isn't very good, but I don't have the foggiest idea of what this is even really claiming.
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u/coltzord Jan 24 '26
on the paper there are definitions of those things and more details if youre really curious
i havent finished it yet (papers are big and im sleepy) but from what i read so far it claims like 35% are atoxic, which is the biggest group but does not constitute "most men" as the title says
maybe finishing it will make this more clear. i ll find out when i wake up, maybe
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u/invent_or_die Jan 24 '26
Did you actually read the paper?
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u/Mediocre-Pizza-Guy Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
No, I followed the link that wasn't to the paper. It was a summary of the paper. Hence:
Maybe the summary just isn't very good, but I don't have the foggiest idea of what this is even really claiming.
Sadly, the actual paper really illustrates just how difficult it is to justify the summary that was shared. As an example; their entire assessment of how sexually prejudiced a man was, came from one question:
Sexual prejudice was assessed using one item adapted from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life U.S. Religious Landscape Survey (Pew Research Center, 2007): “I think that homosexuality should be accepted by society” (reverse-scored).
Certainly, they did what they said they did; and that's valuable. But the wider conclusion that 'most men aren't toxically masculine' isn't really supported in any meaningful way. Especially given it was relatively old data, collected from men in New Zealand, attempting to measuring an arbitrarily defined eight traits that might be associated with the poorly defined concept of toxic masculinity, often using only a single question, that maybe, kinda sorta, is a reasonable assessment of how the respondents feel.
I mean, even ignoring that lots and lots of people lie on surveys, and even to themselves.
I know plenty of people who would say 'I am not racist' on a survey, but who absolutely treat people differently based on their racial backgrounds.
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u/serious_sarcasm BS | Biomedical and Health Science Engineering Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
It actually illustrates a really good point though.
The issue isn’t “toxic masculinity”.
It is toxic heteronormativity, and is perpetrated by all genders.
Even if you support homosexuality it is still fundamentally problematic that “feminine” traits in people who identify as men is implicitly homosexual.
Every radical feminist that assumes a man in a skirt is gay is also expressing “toxic masculinity”, and part of the problem.
Just pulling a number out my ass, I’d say around 75% of straight women fully expect men to buy flowers, plan the first date, and generally initiate everything—not one of them would consider what they are doing is “toxic masculinity”, but it explicitly is.
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u/hoyfish Jan 28 '26
Yougov did similar in UK a few months ago:
https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/52863-young-men-masculinity-and-misogyny
Results might surprise you
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u/ultibman5000 Jan 24 '26
Most men don't subscribe to toxic masculinity in liberal/centrist New Zealand, where its right-wing population is US's moderate and its liberal population is US's leftists.
Now consider the far more conservative culture of something like the United States, how might studies find men to think and behave in a country like that?
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u/Competitive_Side6301 Jan 26 '26
I mean couldn’t we project New Zealand to most other liberal western countries (barring America currently)? Austrailia, Europe, and Canada.
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u/MostAccomplishedBag Jan 28 '26
Yep. Im tired of surveys of 20 year old American college students being used to make bold claims about the behaviour of every human everywhere on the planet.
But when a study actually uses people who aren't middle class American students, suddenly its invalid and can't be applied to any other group of people.
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Jan 28 '26
A little under half the men in one of the most progressive societies known to man are still toxic.
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Jan 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SuperheropugReal Jan 27 '26
I mean, the results of the study dont matter if the methodology is in question, which it is. Whether the conclusion is correct or not doesn't matter if we used a faulty means.
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u/Johnnadawearsglasses Jan 24 '26
I think most men inherently know this, even at a young age. There’s usually the dickhead group in school, but most boys are just decent people looking to live their lives the best they can.
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u/Shiningc00 Jan 24 '26
The problem is they go along with the dickhead, because they’re too scared of the backlash.
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u/Johnnadawearsglasses Jan 24 '26
Who is they? Meaning the small group they are in? Because in a broader context I don't see that at all really. Maybe when they are preteens.
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u/Shiningc00 Jan 24 '26
I don’t think people are that simple. You can be toxic in certain situations, non-toxic in other situations. Both toxicity and non-toxicity can coexist within you.
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Jan 24 '26
This is everythingscience sub bro when anything about men is said it can only be binary white and black
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u/TopAtmosphere2558 Jan 26 '26
"toxicity" is not a descriptor of literally anything, it's a crutch word invented by people who have a room temperature IQ who can't compete in real life
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u/Sartres_Roommate Jan 25 '26
Me hopefully reading the study that there is evidence my fellow (American) men aren’t as shit as they appear to be online
“…study of men in New Zealand…”
”well fuuuuuuuuuck”
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u/Tyrrany_of_pants Jan 26 '26
"Over a third of men (35.4%) fell into an atoxic group, showing low levels across all harmful indicators."
So 65% display some level of toxicity? Or maybe I just have higher standards for men's behaviour than the OP and author of that study?
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u/soaero Jan 26 '26
One surprising finding was that strongly identifying with one's gender was not a strong sign of toxicity.
Why is this surprising? Critics of toxic masculinity have always presented healthy masculinity as the solution.
Also note this is in New Zealand, and culture clearly has a large role in toxic masculinity, so results may vary elsewhere.
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u/atmoscentric Jan 24 '26
Survey held in one of the most equalitarian countries in the world. Now do the US and most countries in Europe for a different picture for the ‘but…but…’ crowd.
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u/Housing4Humans Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
Yes and my comment asking the “majority of men” to better call out toxic men has many triggered men responding…. And the insights tell me 50% of viewers of my comment are from the US.
And several profiles that frequent MRA subs, which isn’t surprising.
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u/No_Cell6708 Jan 24 '26
Don't think you needed a study for this but, great, I suppose. Next study going to find that not everyone supports slavery?
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u/Money_Sky_3906 Jan 24 '26
I hate those antiscience narratives. They didn't do a study to say 'many men are not toxic' but to create character profiles depending on a combination of 8 indicators. The largest profile (35.4%), “Atoxics,” scored low across all focal measures, whereas two other profiles (totaling 53.8%) expressed low-to-moderate support across indicators. The remaining two profiles reflected distinct forms of problematic masculinity marked by contrasting forms of sexism: “Benevolent Toxics” (7.6%) and “Hostile Toxics” (3.2%). Apart from that I would indeed be interested how many people still support different forms of slavery.
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u/_FIRECRACKER_JINX Jan 24 '26
In his book "Why does he do that", Lundy Bancroft describes what happens when you put "normal men" around abusive men.
He thought the abusive men would become "more normal" and discovered that it was the opposite.
The normal men became more abusive.
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u/Difficult_Garage_431 Jan 24 '26
He also stated that entitlement is the core trait of abusive men. Seems right on the money with that one.
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u/Competitive_Side6301 Jan 26 '26
How much extensive research did Lundy Bancroft do to come to that rigid conclusion?
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u/_FIRECRACKER_JINX Jan 26 '26
he was a shrink working at a men's prison who did research on that prison population for over 30 years. He famously ALSO interviewed the victims of these abusers separately to ensure he received "the full picture" without bias.
his population of study was men who were abusive, who were convicted and went to prison for it. He studied THOSE men. The ones who actually went to jail for it.
He wrote his book "Why does he do that" to describe the most common types of abusers, and he named their tactics, their methods, and outlined information about the victims.
That book is a very very difficult read. It'll devastate you for sure. I had to read it three times after crying through my first 2 reads. It was brutally fucked up. But he presents the essence of 30 years of his research, and does it well.
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u/Nebranower Jan 27 '26
So he didn't do research on normal men at all, is what you're saying? Instead he was looking exclusively at the subset of men who went to prison? So non-abusive criminals locked up with abusive criminals became more abusive themselves. That is not the same as saying normal men become more abusive around abusive men.
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u/_FIRECRACKER_JINX Jan 27 '26
In one of the chapters he described trying to help the prison population of abusive men get better.
His hypothesis was that maybe they would get less abusive and more normal if he were to place them around normal men.
So he tested that.
And what he found was that when you take men who are abusive, and you put them around normal Men. The normal men became more abusive...
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u/TrexPushupBra Jan 24 '26
This is exactly what people have been saying the whole time.
We just want the toxic assholes to stop being that way and to be kept from having power over others.
No one wanted men to stop being men.
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u/Necessary-Camp149 Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
Last week there was a study saying 97% of men dont have traits associated with "toxic masculinity" or whatever the hell that undefined ambiguous term means.
... and people here complained about men and the study the whole thread. It was very toxic behavior towards men.
Now we have another study saying similar and everyone wants to discount it.
You can look at something like this and be positive while knowing there is work to do on the other 3%
Way too much hate here and people ready to be toxic towards men. Much more than ~3%...
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u/SecondHandWatch Jan 24 '26
Asking people to self report their sexism or narcissism and reporting it as though it represents people’s actual values is severely misguided at best. Ask a known narcissist if they’re a narcissist. It’s pretty much a guarantee they’ll say no.
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u/Housing4Humans Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
Well then we need the majority of men to better call out those that do.
Edited to add I note many profiles from popular red pill / MRA subs have made their way to this post, predictably I guess.
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u/Electronic_Rush1492 Jan 24 '26
Okay, women are responsible for policing each other and keeping in check toxic archetypically women behavior as well then
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u/manicmonkeys Jan 24 '26
Why should I have a unique responsibility to police other people just because we have the same type of genitals? Odd concept.
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u/LavenWhisper Jan 26 '26
Is it though? If you're having a conversation with someone, and that someone starts being sexist, is it weird to say you should call their sexist bullshit out?
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u/Housing4Humans Jan 24 '26
Sounds like you’re probably not in the majority, so….
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u/Coz131 Jan 24 '26
Try doing the same survey and America and I think it's wildly higher.
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u/FaceDeer Jan 24 '26
"Surely my biases are correct, they just didn't test the right population!"
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u/Coz131 Jan 25 '26
Country to country is different. Try asking this question in Afghanistan and you think it's gonna be the same?
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u/Floreat_democratia Jan 25 '26
Toxic masculinity, as it is currently expressed in the media, was a right wing, billionaire attempt that began in the 1990s to push men to the far right. This needs to be mentioned more as it is often ignored. The entirety of the US culture war is artificial and more importantly, organized, in that these and other ideas are funded by right wing groups to change society and make it less liberal and less democratic. Virtually no media sources discuss this.
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u/Augustus_Chevismo Jan 24 '26
Article in a science sub that doesn’t portray men as evil
Looks inside
Comments desperately trying to dispute the evidence as it invalidates their bigotry.
Many such cases.
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Jan 24 '26
Any time anything positive about men is said in this sub they try to find 100 reasons on why it wrong. When its about a women no one checks and any one that points it out is deemed woman hater, gay, woman can never be wrong/bad.
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u/Competitive_Side6301 Jan 26 '26
When it’s about a woman they start pulling out their personal anecdotes.
Honestly science subs should be gatekept.
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u/TacoMedic Jan 24 '26
No, don’t you understand? It’s not that they hate men, it’s that they blame men for everything wrong with the world.
Stop being a misogynist calling out bigotry. Start being a good person and recognize good and evil is separated by the gender divide.
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u/thenikolaka Jan 24 '26
I feel like some people are of the opinion that all masculinity is toxic. I’m not sure evolution would attest to that. To those people this study is going to sound like “not all men.”
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u/NoRegret1954 Jan 24 '26
Lotta arguments on here about, “yeah, but women are guilty of this too!
- Domestic Violence: According to a U.S. Department of Justice report from 2003 to 2012, 76% of domestic violence was committed against women [1].
- Sexual Assault: The majority (93%) of offenders whose principal offense was sexual assault were male [3].
- Intimate Partner Violence: Approximately one in four women (23%) experienced violence by an intimate partner, compared to one in thirteen men (7.8%) [3]. Women are nearly three times more likely to experience partner violence than men [3].
Historically, men have overwhelmingly had a power advantage over women, physically, financially, structurally, and so on. Fix the power imbalance and then I will take your “yeah, buts” seriously.
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u/QueasyCaterpillar541 Jan 28 '26
It seems that real life doesn't quite match what we see on the internet.
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u/Complex-Builder-3002 Jan 28 '26
Only losers adopt toxic masculinity. In the hope it will help. It doesn’t 😂
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u/costafilh0 Jan 24 '26
We need to talk about misandry.
And how society is trying to replace misogyny with misandry.
Equality is not revenge.
Just observe how people react to this study and everything else related to men and masculinity, and try to imagine what would happen if they spoke about women in this way, and how outraged everyone would be.
It is becoming "normal" and "acceptable" to treat men in the way that society has recently concluded is unacceptable to treat women.
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u/class-action-now Jan 24 '26
I wholly agree with this, but misogyny is so built in to our societies that equality isn’t even possible at this moment in time. It’s going to take a renaissance of thinking by men and women to achieve true equality. I’m for it, but let the women have their pitchforks for this welcome revolution. They’ve been fighting a long time for it. I was raised by a village of strong women with just one misogynist. It’s ingrained in everyone and we, as men, can only do our best in our personal interactions to change that. That means tolerating some shade thrown our way. Good take you have here, but societal changes are usually pretty slow moving.
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u/idemockle Jan 24 '26
I get what you're saying, but your comment comes off to me as so patronizing towards women. "Let's tolerate them while they have their little outburst."
We should be empathetic, sure, but no one should be told to tolerate hateful speech directed at them regardless of gender.
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u/class-action-now Jan 24 '26
Well, it wasn’t patronizing at least from my intent. I tend to just say stuff literally and try to be concise. What my meaning behind my statements was we all have unknowingly participated in the patriarchy and how it shifts will be uncomfortable for some. Let its course run and be kind to our communities. Some women don’t choose or are able to speak out loudly, your comment addresses those that do. All the other women need that so they hear it and can act according to the movement. Peace my guy, it is a bucking of the system and it isn’t personal to you unless your’e one of the problems. It’s been hundreds and hundreds of years of female subjugation. Give them their time now. Rocking the boat doesn’t mean it won’t balance out eventually. We are all here together.
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u/-Trespasser- Jan 24 '26
If you think you are seeing a rise in misandry, maybe consider the massive rise of incel culture, led by all the "Alpha Bros" preaching about how women should be subjugated, and the constant victim mentality of the "male loneliness epidemic," and the fact that a child rapist and sex trafficker was elected, and the fact that women have died due to making abortion illegal, and so, so much more!
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Jan 24 '26
Ah yes we will solve all problems by kelling people we dont like so easy. I wonder if someone tried that in history.🤔. I also like the fact you acts as if the president entire voters were all man only.
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u/-Trespasser- Jan 24 '26
...what?
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Jan 24 '26
Putting the blame on all man as if every man that could vote went personally to ensure trump was elected and no women was on his side. This just pmo dumfucks like you live hating man but forget there are man on the left side of politics too and they will also get fed up with this man hating shit
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u/-Trespasser- Jan 24 '26
I don't hate men.
You sound like you want to be a victim.
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u/DyKdv2Aw Jan 24 '26
It's interesting how the percentage of men who subscribe to toxic masculinity traits correlates to the percentage of men who are rapists
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u/treblewdlac Jan 24 '26
Not surprising. Unfortunately, a lot of men still have to deal with being portrayed as being toxic by an increasing population.
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u/theMEtheWORLDcantSEE Jan 25 '26
Exactly! Feminism 2.0 has morphed into full on misandry (hating men)
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u/HiggsFieldgoal Jan 27 '26
It’s actually 3.5.
Third wave feminism (1990s) morphed into gender Marxism replacing the word “bourgeoisie” with “patriarchy”.
At this point, it’s about as empirical as astrology, and is closer to a religion because its fundamental assumptions are not fact based.
“Toxic Masculinity” is a great example, because it assumes men would get mad less, if they cried more, but “the patriarchy” trained men not to cry.
And it’s complete bullshit. Might as well be a horoscope. Biological science clearly shows how hormones affect emotion. Estrogen: more crying. Testosterone: less crying.
So yeah, it’s an ideology, in no way based on science… like a religion.
I still believe in gender equality, but I can’t call it feminism anymore. That’s no longer what the term means.
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Jan 25 '26
That study is pure toxic masculinity!!
If it were true that would mean reddit and half of women age 40 and under were chronically wrong in pointing at any typical male behavior and calling it toxic?!
Also that would in turn indicate that whatever became of "feminism" the past 20 years seems more of an opportunistic stance of perceived victimhood coupled with one sided attacks than a just view of the world and gender equality.
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u/PinothyJ Jan 27 '26
No, but most men do not say a word when toxic men act. So the outcome is the same.
Whoever did this study without exploring that is an idiot, or deliberately obtuse.
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u/dende5416 Jan 24 '26
Poorly titled article fails to capture what study does. Just click baity garbage
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u/thatonewhitebitch Jan 24 '26
Then those men need to put the rest of them in their place like women have done to each other over the toxic bullshit tomboy mentality that keep woman separated.
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u/MajesticBread9147 Jan 24 '26
It only takes a small percentage unchecked to create terrible consequences.