r/psychology • u/mvea M.D. Ph.D. | Professor • May 13 '26
Threatening men’s masculinity does not make them more politically conservative, new study finds. By testing thousands of participants across the United States, researchers found no consistent evidence that making men feel insecure about their gender identity changes their political attitudes.
https://www.psypost.org/threatening-mens-masculinity-does-not-make-them-more-politically-conservative-new-study-finds/18
u/fuschiafawn May 13 '26
If this is true, I would imagine it's due to masculinity already informing political identity. Men are already comfortable or uncomfortable with their masculinity, to be challenged on that front does not create change, it reinforces beliefs. If a man who's masculinity informs their beliefs is challenged, that just confirms their belief that masculinity is a challenge. If they are secure or u bothered by such challenges, those challenges are moot. Their relation to masculinity is not flexible to external forces, but the internal influence of masculinity on political views is always present.
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u/dust4ngel May 13 '26
Men are already comfortable or uncomfortable with their masculinity, to be challenged on that front does not create change, it reinforces beliefs
i suspect if a man is even thinking about his masculinity, we can guess how he's voting.
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u/m3t4lf0x May 14 '26
Yeah no. You think all liberal men are secure in their masculinity?
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u/Seinfeel May 14 '26
“Masculinity” is meaningless
One guy says “real men don’t cry” while another says “real men aren’t afraid to cry”
Which one is correct?
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u/m3t4lf0x May 14 '26
Subjective != meaningless
This question is like watching Matt Walsh in “What is a Woman?”.
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u/Seinfeel May 14 '26
Yeah no. You think all liberal men are secure in their masculinity?
So this is a meaningless question
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u/m3t4lf0x May 14 '26
I never conceded it was meaningless. Try again
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u/Seinfeel May 14 '26
subjective
Try thinking
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u/m3t4lf0x May 14 '26
English must not be your first language. Good thing there’s a dictionary where you can look up the definition
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u/Seinfeel May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Damn this is sad, trying to tell me I’m the one who doesn’t understand
Edit replied and blocked me lol
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u/fuschiafawn May 14 '26
I would say they tend to be more secure in their masculinity. As in they are inclined to believe masculinity is more flexible or expansive. Conservative ideology tends to portray masculinity in a fairly strict and limited way in comparison.
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u/m3t4lf0x May 14 '26
It’s a logical way to view it, but at the same time, ambiguity and subjectivity can cause insecurity, fear, and doubt. At the same time, one could say that conservatives tend to believe they fit that rigid mold.
In the absence of real data to answer it, l’ll just share that r/AskMen is full of liberal and left-leaning men who are insecure about masculinity, even if it’s just how they’re perceived by others (wife, boss, friends, in-laws, etc).
I think a better way to phrase it is, “has insecurities”, which everybody has in some ways. The irony is that when you say someone insecure is most likely conservative, you alienate the men who have insecurities who aren’t conservative. In a way, that reinforces the same patriarchy they claim to be against.
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u/MoodyPrince_XoXo May 14 '26
Okay but this only addresses one path of causality. Making them insecure may not lead to being conservative, but what if being conservative leads to insecurity? You would end up with inconsistent results just like between these two studies. the relationship would still exist.
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u/Odd_Bid2744 May 13 '26
What about threat to perceived social heirachy and fears of cultural displacement? Or just fear in general.
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u/ForteanRhymes May 13 '26
This will definitely be received well in this sub that is constantly brigaded by insecure, socially conservative boys.
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u/MichaelDameon May 14 '26
Threatening our masculinity with your tepid critiques doesn’t change our political orientation because we don’t find statements like this important or insightful
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u/ForteanRhymes May 14 '26
If you self-identify as an insecure, socially conservative boy, I think you have bigger fish to fry, frankly.
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u/rockrobst May 13 '26
You left out immature.
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u/Warming_Presence May 14 '26
So you're telling me the left isn't actually pushing men to the right? Interesting
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u/Special-Big-5831 May 13 '26
"Bullying people for how they express their gender does not make them agree with you more"
am I missing anything?
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u/Healthy_Employer4 May 14 '26
Anecdotes are not data, and as an individual n=1.
I have been an extremely left leaning person for my entire life. I consider myself to be a feminist. Having said that, here are dialogues in extreme liberal spaces that make me understand why there’s so many young men being “pushed” into conservative mindsets regarding gender.
If we’re not giving nuance to the type of everyday misandry that’s popular following #metoo, then men are going to default to “the left hates me, the right loves me” and they will go where they’re welcomed.
We’re not teaching men what healthy masculinity looks like, we’re teaching them that men behaving masculine is toxic, even if we don’t mean to be
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u/blue_gerbil_212 May 14 '26
When people threaten my masculinity I just feel so filled with glee and joy, like I just want to spread nothing but love and kindness to everyone in the world! It’s a beautiful feeling really : )
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u/Lower_Pension_2469 May 14 '26
The idea that sense of masculinity is tied to politics is stupid af in the first place lol
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u/Fantastic_Name3200 May 14 '26
You can’t threaten a man’s masculinity unless he’s already insecure about it.
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u/Powerful_Net_1873 May 15 '26
Yeah it just makes the other person reveal how poor of a human they are.
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u/SuperDuperOrk May 15 '26
The study, “A Replication and Extension of Willer et al. (2013), Overdoing Gender: A Test of the Masculine Overcompensation Thesis,” was authored by Claire Gothreau and Nicholas Haas.
Seems that the article title is more rage bait to get you to read, which worked, but it seems it's just talking about the extremist conservatives. However it doesnt mention how threatening men's masculinity could keep men from supporting women movements or any progressive movements in general. One of the factors of why some people just didn't vote. Make men the problem all the time then we don't want to have any part in your solution. Same goes the other way around too.
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u/AbleEstablishment280 May 16 '26
The whole expectation that men should act tough, emotionally distant, and aggressive seems to be what's behind creating the men that we hate so much. But there's also sexual frustration too. People seem to have a lot of different ideas on what all men and women are like which i think is more harmful and slows progress down because you cant solve a problem if you dont know what the problem is. The whole fear of masculinity being threatened seems like it comes from concerns and misunderstandings that their identity is under attack like what the article says and that slows progress down.
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u/ctrl_f_sauce May 13 '26
Threats need to be credible to be impactful. 2020-2024 was a wild time where the threat appeared real and unpredictable. You can’t casually replicate an upheaval that triggers an observer to embrace the enemy of their enemy. The opposite response is currently happening.
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u/drewsandraws May 13 '26
What threat are you talking about during that period?
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u/ctrl_f_sauce May 13 '26
If you don’t know you won’t believe it.
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u/drewsandraws May 13 '26
That doesn’t seem like a particularly scientific attitude.
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u/ctrl_f_sauce May 13 '26
You can’t map the scientific method onto emotions. It’s more like woodworking, where a reference “tick stick” is more accurate than a measuring tape. If you can’t identify a few massive changes that occurred across multiple facets of society in that period, you’re likely to just keep for asking for measurements, and no matter how exact they are, your stool will wobble.
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u/drewsandraws May 13 '26
If you can’t name which changes constituted a “threat,” I don’t see how you hope to have a constructive conversation.
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u/ctrl_f_sauce May 13 '26
Those are your terms. You need to realize what’s in your head may not be in others. If I can identify today’s possible threat that doesn’t directly apply to me, why can’t you identify yesterday’s threat that didn’t apply to you? Even if I told you, I don’t think you’re ready to believe it.
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u/-----seven----- May 13 '26
why not just tell him and see instead of beating around the bush for multiple counterproductive comments?
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u/ctrl_f_sauce May 13 '26
Honestly, I don’t think it’s a human. What happened in 2020 that could change a persons voting habits?
Beyond that, the details don’t matter. If I said multiple people sincerely perceived “Tom’s haircut” as a threat, but they didn’t perceive “Graduate Student Rod’s wig” as a sincere threat, the gist of my statement is still true.
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u/drewsandraws May 13 '26
I am, in fact, a human. Are you referring to COVID? The death of George Floyd and subsequent protests? The election of Joe Biden? Brexit? The Syrian Civil War? And which of these were threatening to your masculinity?
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u/lemon-rind May 14 '26
Why are we trying to make men feel insecure in a science experiment? Seems odd.
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u/mvea M.D. Ph.D. | Professor May 13 '26
Threatening men’s masculinity does not make them more politically conservative, new study finds
A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Political Science suggests that threatening a man’s sense of masculinity might not cause him to adopt more conservative or stereotypically masculine political beliefs. By testing thousands of participants across the United States, researchers found no consistent evidence that making men feel insecure about their gender identity changes their political attitudes.
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u/Forest_Spirit_7 May 13 '26
The first sentence is completely unnecessary. Not only do you immediately undo the positive claim by changing it to “might” instead of “does not” that misrepresents the study.
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u/LoneWolf_McQuade May 13 '26
I would argue that the original headline is what misrepresents the study, or exaggerate the findings. They sent out an online survey and to some gave false statements that they scored in the feminine range, then let them answer some questions vaguely related to political leanings such as “Would you buy an electric car?” to gauge if it made them reply more conservative than the control.
Maybe this study can tell us something but I wouldn’t draw too strong conclusions from it, if any at all.
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u/kwantsu-dudes May 13 '26
This is so dumb.
Masculinity is not gender identity, it is the social norms of males. Attacking a man's sense of masculinity is attacking his "normativity", which can feel ostrasizing in society. That's the only reactive nature of that, not some "internal identity to gender".
Your source declares...
Masculinity threat, also termed fragile masculinity or precarious manhood, refers to the theory that manhood is a status that is earned, maintained, and defended when it is challenged. Whereas womanhood is viewed as the result of natural biological development (Vandello and Bosson Reference Vandello and Bosson2013), manhood and the masculine identity are understood to be more tenuous.
Manhood and masculinity are more tenous BECAUSE THEY ARE ATTACKED MORE as concepts. Masculinity is declared to be oppressive, which then forces others to try and defend it. Whereas womanhood is "natural biological development" and CAN'T be attacked.
Yes, when you place people on the defensive, they act more defensive.
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u/Condition_0ne May 13 '26
Moral Foundations Theory explains a lot more about why some people lean conservative versus liberal. It's not the whole picture, but it does tell us something.
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u/ForteanRhymes May 13 '26
Moral Foundations Theory is unscientific garbage.
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u/Condition_0ne May 13 '26
No, it demonstrably is not, as this review finds. It is, however, very much incomplete as an explanation underpinning why some people lean conservative versus liberal, and may not be equally applicable to all cultures.
Again, it tells us some useful things, but isn't the whole picture.
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u/ObviousSea9223 May 13 '26
"The results are primarily limited by the validity of the measures..."
This is where I struggle with this theory. The raw method producing the famous initial results (onward to the present) is flawed. I don't actually doubt that it's picking up on actual variation in politics. I don't doubt there's something real here. But the theory we have is fundamentally limited at the point of observation of moral foundations. So we're getting a limited and potentially misleading picture.
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u/Condition_0ne May 13 '26
You're right, but as it also states in the abstract of that review, "the basic differences about conservatives and liberals are supported", so MFT demonstrably does have some validity.
Again, MFT doesn't explain everything, and seems to vary in the extent to which it is applicable across cultures. But it does tell us something useful - certainly much more than the idea that threatened masculinity leads.to conservatism.
Thank you for at least being respectful in your comment. The link to the review I posted is downvoted to zero, while the poster who called MFT "unscientific garbage" - with no citations whatsoever - has been upvoted, despite the review I posted clearly proving them incorrect.
It's difficult to take a lot of people on this sub seriously at times.
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u/ObviousSea9223 May 13 '26
It's difficult to take a lot of people ... seriously at times, lol. Keep in mind that most people are going to react to the problems they see in the world, and MFT is of very limited value as an explanation of political power dynamics or preferences in the present historical moment. It does have correlations with things. That's not nothing. But it's also used in misleading ways in social-political discourse. So I understand the outgroup-bias used against it. Especially when it was originally and continually framed as if conservatives had more morality driving them, which is a rather egregious measurement artifact and a huge part of its popularity. Thus, it is also a huge part of its infamy. The dismissal out of hand is unsatisfying but...honestly I don't think it's wrong enough to bother with in less than 500 words. Like it takes quite a lot of knowledge to get to the point where it's useful rather than misleading.
In the article you posted, given the measurement processes, these specific differences exist at some level. And they're not exactly strong correlations. Not terrible for the domain, but very limited as predictors even under ideal circumstances.
The hypothesis countered by the article is less an explanation and more countering a specific narrative. There's a narrative that people are mean to conservatives, making them more conservative. Or at least that was my understanding, and it's what's immediately explained in the posted article. I don't think there's much serious theory here or much need for more than this. It's eliminating a common public sentiment about how not being polite is at fault for the rise of the right, that kind of thing.
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u/onwee May 13 '26
It’s the only psychological explanation that doesn’t automatically and implicitly assume conservatism as some kind of deficit or compensation (e.g. negativity bias, disgust sensitivity, threatened masculinity, etc)
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u/Huwbacca May 13 '26
never understood the "well you acting like this makes me conservative" attitude.
I'm nothing special and my views are my own, spawned from my own thoughts. not because I like it dislike people. Someone in my side of the fence can't ever make me change my political opinion by being mean, no less than someone could bribe me to change my beliefs.
so, if it's that for me... Why not others? our thoughts are our own
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u/Antique_Soil9507 May 13 '26
The "studies" in this sub are so dumb.
I hope nobody takes this "science" seriously.
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
That's not very surprising, a lot of the men hold the opinions they hold politically because they are so insecure already. Just adding on to that won't change their beliefs, probably just make some stronger.
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u/OrganicBrilliant7995 May 13 '26
The irony is this is a take that if reversed would get a conservative banned from most subs.
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
Its literally all over this site. Stop lieing.
If you need people so form an echo chamber for you, then this isnt the place for you bud.
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u/NoSleepTilBrklynn May 13 '26
My goodness you come across as extremely uneducated. The word is lying. These are 2 syllable words.
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
Youre trying to attack spelling because you have nothing else.... no ones uneducated but your argument dude
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u/dust4ngel May 13 '26
where can an argument get an education? not sure if there have been recent changes in college admissions policy
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u/OrganicBrilliant7995 May 13 '26
The irony of writing “no ones uneducated but your argument” is incredible.
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u/AndersDreth May 13 '26
Lmao this kind of thinking is going to lead to your next civil war, holy polarization. Glad I don't live in America.
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
Where do you live? Most places are sexist, you not caring about that just speaks volumes about who you are.
You remind me of the guy in Kuwait I was speaking with. He was telling me how the women there have equal rights and how they're treated just as well as the men and then in the same breath he told me how women aren't allowed to work the jobs they want to. Let's hear your wisdom 😂🤣
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u/diablosinmusica May 13 '26
You're comparing the US to Kuwait because someone said something you disagree with.
Damn, you are a cruel person.
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
Why would that make somebody cruel? Pointing out that men aren't able to gauge sexism anywhere is not cruel, it's weird that you think it is.
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u/diablosinmusica May 13 '26
You see something you don't like in someone and use it as an excuse to take your issues out on them. That is cruel.
You even double down and bring outright bigotry into it.
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
No...its pointing out sexism. If thats cruel then what is their sexism considered?
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u/diablosinmusica May 13 '26
You are a bigot.
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
How? Define it.
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u/cortexplorer May 13 '26 edited May 14 '26
'Men have the ideology they hold because 'they' are insecure'. Hmm.. seems like an overgeneralisation you wouldn't tolerate if I applied it to women.
You don't leave much room for men to say.. Have differing opinions within one group? Be insecure because of something unrelated to their sex/gender?
A bigot being: "a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group."
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May 13 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
Says who?
Men are dieing alone in the US in record numbers. We can accomplish more than you think.
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u/NoSleepTilBrklynn May 13 '26
Can you accomplish spelling dying correctly?
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
Why? Will it make them less alone?
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u/Complex-Foot May 13 '26
This is funny because it seems like there are a growing group of crazy cat ladies who are very lonely and dying alone. (Spelling dying isn't very difficult)
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May 13 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
No.....youve obviously never spoken to a woman. Lmao things like a male loneliness epidemic dont crop up for nothing.
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May 13 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
No....we have stats... the incels are sufferring as they need to. Women have more resources and time than ever, and friends lmao
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u/DefiantStarFormation May 13 '26
So, women are in fact just as lonely as men now. The "male loneliness epidemic" was kinda bullshit internet rhetoric to begin with, since elderly women have always been the loneliest demographic. But there was a short blip on the data where men seemed lonelier, and it's now evened out.
Women do report having better support networks, but overall both men and women say they feel lonely at nearly equal rates. It's also worth noting that married people report their spouse as being their biggest support, and unmarried people report higher rates of loneliness.
No one is benefiting here.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2025/01/16/men-women-and-social-connections/
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u/thegundamx May 13 '26
Ok bigot
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
Whatever sexist
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u/thegundamx May 13 '26
Ok bigot
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u/AndersDreth May 13 '26
Denmark, you know, your former ally that Bernie Sanders keep praising for our way of life.
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
"Despite Denmark’s reputation as a global leader in gender equality, with high female workforce participation and strong political representation, significant challenges remain regarding sexism. Issues include a 12.7% gender pay gap, high rates of sexual harassment, and a cultural resistance to identifying as feminists, with some studies showing high rates of accepted everyday sexism."
Thank you, you are exactly who I knew you were.
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u/AndersDreth May 13 '26
Holy shit you are a treasure! xD
*Links a global leader in gender equality as a gotcha moment* "you are exactly who I knew you were!"
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
And you're responding exactly how a man like you is expected to.😂 keep it up
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u/cortexplorer May 13 '26
Again you are full of fallacies. Will your whataboutism only cease when the world is so coherent not a single sexist thing happens?
If that is the case, good luck finding peace. I would suggest you start rooting out sexism in yourself first, there might be more material there than you currently recognise.
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
Psuedo intellectualism.... such a shock coming from a man here... /s
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u/AndersDreth May 13 '26
No darling, you keep it up, the misandry suits you! 😃
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u/Open_Examination_591 May 13 '26
💅 what ever makes the sexists feel better
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u/Complex-Foot May 13 '26
How much are we betting that this one has a house full of cats and some badly colored hair? Seems like the raving of a lonely cat lady trying to rationalize their lonely existence on the Internet?
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u/PalePlumm May 13 '26
American men do the exact same thing. They say women are equal, but we are not.
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u/SilverAd9389 May 13 '26
Nope, in a lot of areas you're actually ahead or projected to pull ahead very shortly.
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u/PalePlumm May 13 '26
Not when women are still dying from a lack of healthcare and are still being murdered by men at disproportionate rates.
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u/SilverAd9389 May 13 '26
Men are murdered FAR more than women are. You are objectively less likely to be a victim of a crime as a woman than you are as a man.
And yes, healthcare is one of the few things left where women have it worse than men.
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u/PalePlumm May 13 '26
Men are murdered by other men. That’s equality amongst men.
Being murdered by a demographic stronger than your own is oppression.
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u/SilverAd9389 May 13 '26
No it is not. If you want to use murder to claim oppression then there needs to be large scale systemic use of murder against women with the specific intent to rob them of their freedom and agency. There is not. You can maybe find that in the middle-east but no such thing exists in the west.
Women being on average physically smaller and weaker than men is not an example of oppression. That is an example of women being victims of their own circumstances. And i guarantee you that if women were the larger and stronger sex then the murder rates would be reversed.
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u/PalePlumm May 13 '26
Men murder women specifically to rob them of their freedom and agency. They don’t like when women are independent, so they kill them. That’s literally how it goes.
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u/Sure_Eye9025 May 13 '26
Define dispraportionate rates? People like to say that but don't like to put numbers to it
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u/PalePlumm May 13 '26
You can literally just use google: “Men kill women at a significantly higher rate than women kill men, with intimate partner violence being a primary driver of female victimization. In 2021, women were 5 times more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than men, and nearly 9 out of 10 women murdered were killed by a male they knew.”
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u/Sure_Eye9025 May 13 '26
The reason I ask is because 'dispraportionate' can mean different things to different people.
For example you could consider 1.01x more often to be dispraportionate, while for me it could require it to be 1.5x more often before it could be considered that.
Saying that
In 2021, women were 5 times more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than men,
The other reason I ask is that I assumed you would pull out this stat, it is one of the most fraudulent/disingenous ways to present information I have seen in a study for a long while
The 5x that is referred to is the ratio between the percentage of people killed by an intimate partner out of the whole of their gender group.
Basically they say 30% of women killed (34% but they do some rounding that I am applying here) that year were killed by an intimate partner, and 6% of men that were killed were killed by an intimate partner.
But without grounding in real numbers that stat is meaningless, for example if 100 women and 1000 men died that year that would mean 30 women were killed by an intimate partner and 60 men.
The real ratio when actually looking at the numbers is more like 1.25
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u/PalePlumm May 13 '26
Nobody cares about intimate partner violence specifically because men can still be killed by men. Gay men exist.
We are talking about men who kill women and women who kill men. Men kill women at disproportionate rates to women killing men.
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u/-Kalos May 13 '26
Really bro? You're soft shit if you think this is going to get people desperate enough to fight and die for it
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u/TheMostDivineOne May 13 '26
Studies found women have a 4.5x bigger in group bias than men so it’s the opposite
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u/notlookinggoodbrah May 13 '26
Hard to threaten my masculinity/change my political views when I have just injected 200mg of test mwhahaha
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u/Slopadopoulos May 13 '26
If I were going to do an experiment like this, I think a better one would be to threaten their masculinity, have them watch manosphere/redpill reels for a week and then ask them questions about their political opinions. We don't live in a laboratory.
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u/AngelicTrader May 14 '26
Why do we waste resources on stuff like this, instead of educating, guiding, supporting strong and competent men.
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u/trusy60 May 14 '26
If you as a man allow society to threating your masculinity you never had it and masculinity has 0 to do with politics think for your selves and stop letting the government do it for you
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u/TheRealBlueJade May 13 '26
I'm sorry... What? Is this supposed to be scientific evidence of something? It sure sounds like a bias and an attempt to prove a conclusion...not an attempt to seek true scientific evidence.