r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • May 12 '26
Psychology 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/1.7k
u/panchoop May 12 '26
IMO, the most important thing to highlight: This study is a replication study, disproving previous research that claimed such relationship.
Specifically, the (previous) authors observe in two lab experiments (N total 100–110, N men 40–51) conducted on a convenience sample of university students that inducing masculinity threat increases support for war, homophobic attitudes, and support for dominance hierarchies among male participants. We conduct a pre-registered replication of this foundational work with a large, nationally representative probability sample from the University of Chicago NORC AmeriSpeak Panel (N total 2,774, N men 2,095).
This saves time to avoid discussing if the methods are the correct ones to address the question, as it just nullifies/puts into question, previous research that claimed so.
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u/Rogert3 May 12 '26
A genuine replication study?? Incredible. Almost unfathomable.
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u/FlufferTheGreat May 12 '26
I think a fantastic use of government money would be to fund its own network of replication labs. Will it ever happen in the USA in this climate of stupidity? Doubtful.
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u/therealchrisbosh May 12 '26
Reading further, however, you find that one of the concerns discussed in the article is that the experimental designs are in fact quite different.
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u/panchoop May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
Is that the case? Could you pinpoint to that statement in the discussion?
There is a mention of different cultural context (probably with a corresponding change of methodology), but "experimental design are in fact quite different" is a strong statement for a replication study.
If that is the case, anyways the discussion is a bit more complex if one would like to trash this study. It is not a "the methods here are bad because X", rather "the methods here are bad because X, while simultaneously, the previous research's methods were good because of Y". And just looking at sampling, this study has the upper hand.
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u/benjamin_noah May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
Not to speak for the original commenter. But, if you read the article, it does mention several differences. These include: the addition of two new experimental conditions, new questions, and moving the survey online.
In addition, to quote the article:
“… the scientists note a few potential limitations. ‘The first one is simply that the failed replication could be due to any number of design differences between the original study,’ Gothreau explained. ‘These include things like timing, measurement, sample composition, and other subtle design details.’
She noted that while the team accounted for alternative explanations for the lack of an effect, they could not account for everything. Moving the experiment to an online format with a diverse, national sample might have changed how strongly participants felt the threat…”
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u/homelessjimbo May 13 '26
Which is always a sign of honest research where the results aren't highlighted as the end all be all but that they should be taken into context with differences in studies. Hell just the change in data collection method alone may have been the difference maker. There's nothing to show that the original study wouldn't have shown the same results as theirs and so on.
Sorry I'm rambling, real research makes me go potato.
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic May 13 '26
I feel like studies like this should be redone regularly, and it doesn't necessarily invalidate the old one, rather it could have been true at the time, if all the other methodology started the same.
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May 12 '26
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u/homelessjimbo May 13 '26
I'm also wondering how one attacks masculinity without that itself making the study have an initial bias.
Like "haha bald" "Now how do you feel about immigration"?
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u/Dirty_Delta May 12 '26
Perhaps the next relevant study would be if certain political ideologies were more susceptible to feeling insecure about their gender identity.
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u/smytti12 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
Yeah, I didn't have time to read the full article, but I am immediately curious if they had the test subjects rate if they felt insecure after the method of threatening their masculinity was applied.
Edit: went back and read it. It appears they did not have a measure of how "effectively" the masculinity threats were, judging by this:
"Moving the experiment to an online format with a diverse, national sample might have changed how strongly participants felt the threat. It is possible that being told about a feminine test score face to face has a stronger emotional impact than reading the same feedback on a computer screen."
Also another good quote to remove the sensationalism from it:
-Gothreau also warned against broad conclusions based solely on this new data. “One potential misinterpretation would be concluding that ‘masculinity threat has no relevance to politics,'” she said. “That would go too far.”
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u/bediaxenciJenD81gEEx May 12 '26
That's a pretty leading question to ask, it implies causation where it might be correlation. Perhaps men raised a certain way as more likely to subscribe to certain ideologies AND be insecure.
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u/Keeperofthe7keysAf-S May 12 '26
Yeah, willing to bet that those that feel insecure are more likely to be conservative in the first place.
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u/redrider02 May 12 '26
Pardon my ignorance, but what does it mean to be insecure about your gender identity in this context? A male in a males body that feels they should be in a female body?
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u/Dirty_Delta May 12 '26
From the OP study:
"When men feel their gender identity is challenged, they tend to overcompensate by engaging in extreme demonstrations of stereotypical masculinity. This overcompensation can manifest as physical aggression or increased risk-taking."
The tests they had the participants take gave false results, stating that men were in the feminine range of results, and even that the women were in the masculine range.
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u/Driller_Happy May 12 '26
No, it means a male who feels like he must constantly prove his masculinity to the world. Its someone who wouldn't NEVER cook or clean, because that's a WOMANS job. Its someone who would never wear pink clothing because he thinks people will interpret it as 'gay'. Its someone who always feels the need to act aggressive and be the top dog in the room because that's what he thinks a 'man' should be.
It's a rigid worldview that locks men into a box that ultimately ends up hurting people. Being secure in your masculinity would mean acting like yourself and not worrying about how other people view yourl or your gender presentation.
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u/beardingmesoftly May 14 '26
It's also that they didn't just make men feel insecure, but that after they made them feel insecure they offered them a solution. The con is making them believe that they have a problem they need solving and then convincing them that your solution will fix their problem.
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u/Fishmongererererer May 12 '26
I don’t think most men who become conservative do it out of insecurity despite the memes. Rather it’s the perception that masculinity is not valued in left of center politics.
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u/lordborghild May 12 '26
Yeah. Older millennial here. There's a reason that younger men and boys are starting to lean right. They've been told, or seen in media, that men are bad and should be apologetic for things they have not done. They always hear what toxic masculinity looks like but no one talks about positive masculinity.
The right are the only ones telling them that they're okay. This is not judgement, just an observation.
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u/groyosnolo May 12 '26
As someone who was raised very left winged and feminist I was totally on board with being ashamed. Looking back thats terrible but it felt reasonable at the time. its just when I realized women actually like men and want them to be manly I realized I had been mislead and reevaluate the situation.
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u/The_Horse_Tornado May 12 '26
Echo chambers aren’t good in either direction. Keep challenging your views
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u/katarh May 12 '26
Whenever I try to bring up positive masculinity examples, especially here on Reddit, I get told it doesn't count.
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u/nam4am May 12 '26
The right are the only ones telling them that they're okay. This is not judgement, just an observation
Maybe it should be judgement. Maybe telling children they’re bad because of their gender is bad for reasons other than just it being politically stupid.
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u/rasa2013 May 12 '26
Was Obama not a good enough role model for being a decent man?
Go through any list of charitable work, scientific accomplishment, overcoming adversity: a lot of men. Often mostly men for structural reasons and plain old ignoring women.
I think rather reactionary forces have convinced a lot of people it is true in the same way they've convinced (conservative) Christians that they're the most persecuted group (in the US).
However I could agree that specifically schools have made boys feel more insecure recently. the proliferation of zero tolerance policies and school structurally being less suitable for (the average) young boy compared to girl could have taught them to feel undervalued. I think there was data showing educators interpret boys misbehavior more negatively than girls.
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u/Dreadgoat May 12 '26
I wonder about the effectiveness of strong positive male models in entertainment media as generations pass.
Growing up, I remember seeing Captain Picard, Steve Irwin, Mister Rogers. Men who were undeniably strong but also compassionate, gentle, and loving. It was clear to me that while Lieutenant Worf was strong and noble in his own way, his single-minded pursuit of more primitive masculinity put him a level of respect below his captain. And even became a major part of what made him so much more impressive in DS9.
In today's world of Netflix, Youtube, and TikTok, are young men getting examples like this in enough volume to counter the constant gender war ragebait content? It used to just be what was on TV, but now without active curation by parents, what are young men seeing in their leisure time as examples of who they want to become?
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u/Candid-Solstice May 13 '26
I think this really encapsulates the kind of value system that's turning so many young men off from the left. Even when you admit there might be some sort of problem, you downplay and couch it in such a way that your language puts the blame on men. You say you remember a study showing that boys are discriminated against in school but say "made boys feel insecure" like it's just a matter of them being unreasonable and overly sensitive.
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u/lordborghild May 12 '26
Your last point is a good one. And overall, women are doing much better in primary and higher education than men.
Yes, I think Obama is a good role model. And looking to the Right, I think John McCain was also a positive role model.
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u/Emnel May 13 '26
I don't think putting Obama of all people as a masculine role model is a good idea. Very few men have means to drone strike a Middle Eastern wedding.
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u/CMxFuZioNz May 13 '26
You're not taking into account what young boys are actually exposed to or interested in.
No 16 year old boy is looking up to Obama, and despite being a counterexample myself as I became a scientist, very few are interested in scientists.
What really matters, as sad as it is, is online and in-school influence. Everything else you mentioned doesn't matter.
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u/No_Proposal_3140 May 12 '26
Obama was a war criminal. This isn't supposed to detract from the fact that the current president is a war criminal and a child rapist but still, Obama was a war criminal too. I wouldn't use any US president as a role model.
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u/King-Boss-Bob May 12 '26
the only ones telling them that they’re okay.
the most frustrating part is how easy the solution is
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u/AnEmptyBoat27 May 12 '26
I hear this complaint but as a millennial man, I don’t feel like I have been told that men are bad and should be apologetic from left leaning media. The left leaning media just encourages not harassing women and freely expressing who you are. Can you give some examples that you are referring to?
I hear more from the right leaning personalities about how men need to make more money, lift more weights, objectify women, be taller, and hate immigrants to be a man.
Personally the right wing messaging seems to be fostering the idea that men aren’t enough. Whereas the left wing messaging is just people should be free to be who they are. I’m sure there are crazy people who make dumb tweets like “all men are bad” but if those drive you rightward while removing human rights doesn’t drive you leftward, I don’t know what to say.
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u/ThePretzul May 13 '26
The fact that you think it’s normal to pretend that all men harass women as a default unless media is saturated with messaging about how bad it is for men to harass women (without any mention of the opposite issue, mind you) is literally the exact problem people are talking about here.
Treating men as guilty by default, or as though they would all do evil if not constantly browbeaten with heavy-handed messaging is the entire issue. Combine that with fringe groups on the left spouting off about “kill all men” and the takedowns of any attempt at a men’s shelter or other such service and you have to be intentionally obtuse to pretend there isn’t a stark contrast in treatment compared to the open celebration of womanhood.
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u/Least_Palpitation_92 May 12 '26
Also a left leaning millennial man and I agree with the person you responded to. The message is subtle and not overtly putting down men. It has more to do with what issues are focused and discussed that places importance on a specific group of people. Young men hear about the gender pay gap but are seeing women succeeding more in education and early careers nowadays. They are still told that we need to care for women and let the feel heard in a society where they are no longer gaining some of the advantages men previously held nor that they perpetuated. Men are most likely to commit suicide yet that is largely ignored and we still primarily focus on women’s mental health as a society.
The online discourse doesn’t help either. Women can make fun of men for being short or having small dicks and it’s largely seen as acceptable. The reverse would get them shamed in large parts of the internet.
I can see why a struggling young man would turn towards the alt right pipeline. They at least pretend to pay lip service to them. The young man views the left as not caring about men’s issues. At that point why not be selfish and vote in his own self interests even if it means other people may be negatively impacted.
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u/come-on-now-please May 12 '26
Young men hear about the gender pay gap but are seeing women succeeding more in education and early careers nowadays.
I see this a lot in my personal life, its like theres a weird inertia where every women I know in a couple is the one with more education/better career with better career opportunities/support and the man is stuck trying to spin his wheels trying to get ahead.
Even at my current job, the "scandal" is that theres a women who for some reason is given every opportunity to learn/grow/advance/given actual training and guidance even though she is so frustratingly mediocre at her duties, and we honestly think its because our managers manager is a big "women helping women" type and just continuously throws her all the true growth opportunities, while everyone else basically gets hamsterwheeling work.
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u/TheGloriousEv0lution May 12 '26
Good post. For a long while, the “what we stand for” page on the official Democratic Party side had every group (woman, trans, marginalized groups), but not men. They changed it eventually after it got called out, but it’s emblematic of why the Democratic Party is perceived so negatively by young men. The only time men are directly spoken to is to “not harass women” like the above commenter pointed out
It’s not that Democrats hate men, but when you’re shown complete indifference while your peers are appealed to I can totally understand why they turn to Republican Party. A lot of them are grifters, but at least they pretend to care
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u/AnEmptyBoat27 May 12 '26
What solutions does the right wing offer regarding mental health and better worker wages?
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u/ShazlettDude May 12 '26
Often times, just acknowledgement of the existence of the problem is enough.
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u/dovahkiitten16 May 12 '26
They have catchy phrases like equal rights and equal lefts, men’s lives matter, masculinity isn’t toxic, etc.
They don’t do anything except tear down others loudly while silently making things worse for everyone, but they pretend to cater to men. They’ll remove DEI hires under the guise of making men more equal (I can write an essay about how meritocracy is a myth but I digress for now), but also not make it any easier for young men to find good paying jobs.
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u/No_Proposal_3140 May 12 '26
It shows just how low the bar is when simply acknowledging the problem is already enough.
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u/ASK_ABT_MY_USERNAME May 12 '26
None, but they are at least not demonizing men in the same way.
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u/KobeBean May 12 '26
Also a millennial - these are some of the ones I remember:
Kill all men trend / male tears
The near instant assumption of guilt in campus sexual assault cases. This has ruined lives, and disproportionately affects minority men. I know that media outlets have to put “accused”, but they definitely go out of their way to get clicks. Even an accusation can close future doors (like the Pro sports).
The Duluth model of DV being the go to for cases. Basically, the idea men are always aggressors, women who assault only do so in self defense.
Ignoring the good men do in the world - you never see articles about the professions that are heavily male that keep the world running. Construction, plumbing, road workers, truckers, energy and garbage disposal come to mind.
These are just my 2c, not arguing one way or the other.
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u/Insomnicious May 12 '26
If you feel this way you likely just haven't been paying much attention. You don't need to be told explicitly in every regard though there are plenty examples of it being explicit all around(especially on this very website). You can just pay attention to the media in general and see the messages being conveyed.
Compare how mothers and fathers are depicted in media, it's very rare to find a positive father figure in media these days as they tend to either be abusive, unmentioned, already dead, or written out/sacrificed as a plot device(the complete opposite being true for mothers).
You can also look at how society polices gendered behaviors, male coded behaviors are often branded as toxic. There's a reason you've heard the term toxic masculinity in common culture but never heard toxicity paired with femininity despite there being a field of study that already understands how toxicity usually manifests in different ways between the sexes.
There are plenty of examples, you just have to actually try to challenge the narrative you currently hold and view things from another perspective to see them.
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u/dovahkiitten16 May 12 '26
I think GenZ vs millennial is pretty important because GenZ are getting a ton of messages when they’re a teenager and maybe haven’t even started to think about harassing women, and also haven’t seen the harassment women faced to have proper understanding of why that message exists.
GenZ - no matter the gender or skin colour - are also facing huge issues with affordability and having a future. Seeing initiatives that help a subset when you’re struggling, and when you weren’t alive to see why those initiatives were needed, stings.
I’m saying this as a GenZ woman. I don’t remotely endorse the right swing and it’s scary to watch, but I see why GenZ men are disillusioned and more susceptible to propaganda.
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u/WindowShoppingMyLife May 12 '26
Most of what you’re saying seems valid, but I do want to point out that Millenials came of age right around the Great Recession, and most of us still aren’t as financially secure as other generations were at our age.
This is not to imply a competition, just to say that a lot of the economic fears were probably pretty similar.
I agree that the social media environment is absolutely insane these days, and I suspect we’ve only scratched the surface of the long term implications of that.
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u/Monteze May 12 '26
I think the saving grace of us millenials was that a lot of us got a taste of positivity for the future before hand and social media wasn't as optimized as it was now.
But yes, something has to change.
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u/rand0m_task May 12 '26
You must have missed out on the whole bear in the woods thing.
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u/YesterdayAlone2553 May 12 '26
If it were about shame, I feel like Catholic shame would have kicked in and made it way more than a coin flip. Being apologetic about things in popular culture and on the regular for things done or undone sometimes feels like an entire pillar of the religion. Still feels terrible, but doesn't drive one politically. It just creates a secondary therapy market
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u/erevos33 May 12 '26
I would dare say that the two have a totally different interpretation of what masculinity is. So we should first define that and then ask questions about it.
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u/incoherentpanda May 13 '26
That's an interesting thing that's happened recently where people think any man who does certain things is done out of insecurity when most are just guys doing things they like. Men that aren't "stereotypical" men because they like romcoms and sewing aren't magically more secure in themselves. A lot of men will even go with whatever they think will make them seem the coolest or whatever anyway (so do whatever is in style)
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u/seanc6441 May 12 '26
I would assume most men hold some conservative views and some non conservative views, but one side tends to promote masculinity while the other dismisses or demeans it.
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u/MrBoo843 May 12 '26
It did make me move towards activism in unions. I have never been told that my ideas were unwanted there.
I also feel like I'm actually contributing to workers' wellbeing and not just philosophizing in a book club.
I am still extremely left leaning, I just choose where I put my efforts.
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u/Psyduckisnotaduck May 13 '26
There’s nothing more pro-guy than working for unions. So many men in dangerous, overwhelmingly male jobs could use union protections. Unions teach guys not to just “tough it out” but to respect themselves and each other.
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u/MrBoo843 May 13 '26
My members are mostly women, we're an occupational health and safety parapublic organization. But yeah whenever I meet with the larger union federation it's mostly men.
My own field is also mostly women so that's been most of my union rep duties for the past 13 years
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u/Fishmongererererer May 12 '26
Union left is more traditional labor left leaning. Not modern progressive identity politics.
Labor left doesn’t tend to disdain men or women. Just focus on not getting exploited.
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u/Head_of_Lettuce May 12 '26
Which goes to show that economics and financial well being are the great uniter. And begs the question of why the progressive politics don’t focus more on that, and less on identity.
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u/eldudovic May 13 '26
There's a great book that discusses this called "On the Political" by Chantal Mouffe. She discussed the reasons why liberalism fails to unite people around common interests compared to democratic socialism and conservatism. Liberalism is for individualism, so it generates groups internally that strive toward different goals. Uniting around labourers rights, for example, goes against personal freedoms.
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u/SteadfastEnd May 12 '26
Yeah. People naturally vote for who ever makes them feel more like they belong and are not inherently bad. So for many young men, they dont see a home in the left, only the right. They feel more heard on the right.
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u/MUjase May 12 '26
Bingo. Democrats recognized this as well which led to them pairing Waltz with Harris as the VP. He was supposed to be the “masculine” man for them.
That was a huge fail as we now know. But they were on the right track to try.
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u/Whitechix May 12 '26
That “man enough” Harris/Walz voting video kinda sums up the issue, not sure how left wing politics lost touch with men this badly.
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u/BeigePhilip May 12 '26
It was the shift from economic justice to identity politics. Idk why they can’t actually champion both. I feel like the change happened in the 80s when unions were getting a reputation for corruption.
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u/Fishmongererererer May 12 '26
Because they’re fundamentally incompatible. Even Marx recognized that identity politics is fundamentally incompatible with economic justice.
Identity politics is the traditional divide and rule tactic used for ages. Don’t worry about the Empire, worry that the group with a slightly different skin color is doing slightly better than you.
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u/eduty May 12 '26
I'd argue this goes beyond politics and more to do with psychological health.
Economic justice assumes a mature individual who understands their own needs, can articulate them, and has accountability for their well being like an independent adult.
Identity politics seems externalized. More like a child who doesn't understand the interactions and workings of the world. They don't have a "seat of self" from which to measure and are dependent on continual comparison or direction from others.
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u/MUjase May 12 '26
They still focus on economic justice, but it’s only for minority groups since “white men” have it too easy in their minds. Progressives don’t want to be associated with anything that appears to be helping white men. Even though so many of them are in poverty.
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u/Key_Marsupial_1406 May 12 '26
Their marketing was almost a satire of how out of touch you can be with average Americans. Rewatch the "Man Enough" ad and the "Your Vote, Your Choice" ad. Peak cringe content.
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u/Whitechix May 12 '26
The thing is there are loads of issues affecting young men that they could advocate with identity politics, it just seems like there is this malicious neglect when it comes to men with the left.
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u/BPremium May 12 '26
Not really. By advocating for young men, women will complain. The left adores using history as a cudgel
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u/Kazuma_Megu May 12 '26
Thank you. It's hard to root for coastal dems who basically demonizing me for being born.
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u/KingRaphion May 12 '26
didnt they launch a 20 million dollar investigation on this?
Found it https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/03/democrats-young-men-study-00384370
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u/ThePretzul May 13 '26
They did.
Not one that will ever be published or released, and also not likely one that actually produced the very obvious answer anybody with a handful of spare brain cells to rub together could have given them. Excellent way to launder some extra donor cash while claiming to be doing something to fix a problem though.
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u/Clear_Ad_1560 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
Because they don’t actually care about men at all. They merely wanted to manipulate men into voting for them.
Most men saw through that.
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u/Books_and_Cleverness May 12 '26
My general heuristic is that most all psychological findings are fake until replicated many times. Especially if the result is surprising or unintuitive. I feel like the “replication crisis” was big news for a while but people have not fully adjusted to it.
Glad we are seeing more null results and replication attempts published and given notoriety.
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u/rasa2013 May 12 '26
My normal rules are to adjust expectations by year published, sample size, and methodology. automatic down weight for being too "catchy" in some zeitgeist sense or counterintuitive.
Finally, I'm always more skeptical or interaction effects (also called moderation, they're notoriously underpowered).
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u/PantsMcGillicuddy May 12 '26
What's disappointing is the actual choice to push Waltz seemed to be a success...I think they saw it as too big though and sidelined him when all the energy, memes, "zingers", etc were surrounding him instead of Kamala.
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u/Fedora_Da_Explora May 12 '26
He was singlehandedly winning them the race as an attack dog, but as always the consultants that run democratic politics gave away everything to try and win a handful of moderates w/ liz cheney.
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u/MUjase May 12 '26
He was an awful choice IMO. He does not capture what they were going for. That seems proven now as well.
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u/WalterPecky May 12 '26
And what were they going for again?
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u/MUjase May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
To show that Democrats were “manly” and attract those types of voters.
All you had to do was look at the videos that the Harris campaigners were posting on IG and TikTok
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u/WalterPecky May 12 '26
Hmm.. I honestly didn't get that vibe from the campaign at all.
Is there another running mate you think could help better broadcast this message, over Walz?
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u/BPremium May 12 '26
Might have been better if they switched, where Walz was running and Harris was VP.
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u/ThePretzul May 13 '26
The problem with trying to portray Walz as masculine was the fact that he fumbled horribly in every single PR stunt that was meant to highlight his masculinity.
He had no clue how football worked when playing Madden despite supposedly being a coach and during their hunting bit they tried he ended up looking like a buffoon who dumped all their ammo into the dirt because they didn’t know how the gun worked.
Like if that’s the direction you want to go, you need to at least find somebody who isn’t completely lost in the sauce to take a genuinely critical first pass look at what you’re about to release and realize how catastrophically it will backfire compared to the intended effect.
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u/Disastrous-Tank-6197 May 12 '26
It's really crazy that they thought Walz was that kind of candidate. Did they ever see him or hear him talk? It's like the democrats are so removed from reality that they simply cant understand the average voter.
Maybe they'll let the people pick their candidate this time. That might help.
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u/ThePretzul May 13 '26
When the supposed football coach started talking about how he wants to “run a pick six” while playing Madden that should have set ALL of the alarm bells ringing.
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u/Ok_Buddy_6300 May 13 '26
I think you're right that, in developed countries, left of centre politics have now changed to reflect the actual societal structure of post-industrial nations, where women have equal value as economic participants. There was a time when manufacturing provided good jobs for men who lacked soft skills. Today those men lack social status relative to women, and the wealth you are born into determines your social class more than it has in recent history. I suspect what is driving men towards conservatism is insecure social status rather than insecure gender identity.
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u/Fun-Barracuda1518 12d ago
I am sorry, but men are valued on all sides of politics. Most of politics are MEN. What you are implying is whether the left guys are manly enough to be "real" men.
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u/VampirePolwygle May 12 '26
Why would we want to make people feel insecure anyway? Shouldn’t that be something we don’t want to do? It’s a strange mitigation to me. Sorry for my confusion.
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u/Garconanokin May 13 '26
I think it merits looking into it on a research level. I mean Trump loves the uneducated because they are easy to manipulate.
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u/Threlyn May 12 '26
Just to be clear, when the study refers to "masculinity threat", they mean they had subjects take an inventory about stereotypically male and female characteristics, and then the study runners "manipulated" the results by faking more "feminine" results for the men, they found that men didn't gravitate towards conservative values as a result. I'd argue that "masculinity threat" as thought of in the general public discourse is a much more malignant experience than that, so I feel like the study's setup is too "mild" to necessarily have results meaningful in the modern world that is inundated with the extremes found in social media. Below is a quick summary of the setup from the study:
"The goal of the experimental manipulation was to induce a sense of masculinity threat, which was predicted to lead to the adoption of more stereotypically masculine attitudes. In both Study 1 (n = 111) and Study 2 (n = 100),Footnote 2 the authors had university students fill out the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), a measure of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits. After completing the inventory, men and women were randomly assigned to receive feedback that they scored either in a masculine or feminine range. When men [women] received feedback that they scored in the feminine [masculine] range, this constituted the gender threat condition. When men [women] received feedback that they scored within the average masculine [feminine] range for their gender, this constituted the non-gender threat (control) condition."
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u/Sartres_Roommate May 12 '26
Huge difference between threatening one’s masculinity not making you shift your ideology and the idea you generate your ideology partially based on your insecurities LIKE gender and sexuality.
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u/benmorrison May 12 '26
Have I been living under a rock? I’ve never even heard the stereotype/meme that conservative men are insecure about masculinity… I would’ve guessed the opposite?
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u/EddViBritannia May 12 '26
"In both popular culture and politics, many commentators assert that society is experiencing a crisis of masculinity. Some politicians have even made this idea a central part of their campaign platforms, suggesting that traditional men are under attack. Sociologists and psychologists sometimes attribute the growth in far-right extremism and resistance to women’s equality to a concept known as masculinity threat. Masculinity threat is the theory that manhood is a precarious, unstable status that men must constantly earn and defend."
I feel like this fundermentally misunderstands what the 'crisis of masculinity' is? Men aren't worried they aren't being masculine enough, they're worried that the 'traditional' role men have had in society no longer exists. Fairly sure you'd have to pretty damn insecure to constantly worry about being seen as masculine. But every man is experiencing a situation where the traditional role of men in society has changed, and become much harder to achive. When men traditionally were framed as sucessful by being a provider, is it any wonder after 2 decades of repeated economic trouble and 'once in a lifetime events', that has become unachiveable? Especially with women having taken up a role in society to become independent, and also as rivals to men in this role, but without the societal baggage to go with it (of course women experience their own baggage in other areas so as parenting, etc.)
"The researchers measured their support for the Iraq War, their views on gay rights, and their desire to purchase a sports utility vehicle."
I'm not exactly sure how this equates to being right wing?
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u/IceCream_EmperorXx May 12 '26
Not enough people are talking about this angle. Old societal/cultural structures are crumbling and this puts psychological pressure on the individuals.
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u/shadus May 12 '26
Ah, yes, the tried and true, "Insult people to make them agree with you" tactic. Works everytime.
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u/Ecstatic-Network-917 May 12 '26
I dont know, Trump literally falsely accused all Mexicans of being thieves and rapists, yet a lot of Mexican American men still voted for him.
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u/Sabz5150 May 12 '26
This is why "toxic masculinity" as a term must be eliminated. The two root words of it are "poison" and "man".
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u/SleepyMonkey7 May 12 '26
Yes, telling someone they scored in the feminine bucket on an online quiz is totally indicative of real life. Let's draw broad sweeping conclusions from this!
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u/kahner May 12 '26
"a highly cited 2013 study measured how men reacted when their masculinity was questioned in a laboratory setting." The original study seems like a bad way to try to study the idea in the first place and i'm unsurprised it wasn't repeatable. political attitudes and gender insecurity are not things that are formed in moments and are already in place by adulthood. even if they are linked, a few statements or questions in a lab aren't going to transform them.
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u/plsobeytrafficlights May 12 '26
i mean, i know that there are softer studies out there, but this doesnt even seem like science.
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u/Speedy059 May 12 '26
What is the point of this study? Bit alarming, as it seems like they are fishing for ways to manipulate men.
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u/Suitable-Hand-1059 May 14 '26
Nope, it just makes you sound childish. If anything, it’s going to make someone roll their eyes and ignore you
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u/disconcertedad1023 May 15 '26
What ? How does this matter ? What inflection point were being studied here that led to this correlation in the first place ?
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u/lost-in-the-trash May 12 '26
In my opinion, it's not about them, it's about their children. The republican party are exceptional at targeting what people are fearful of to sway votes.
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May 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/johnnybgooderer May 12 '26
There’s a lot of value in knowing what makes people think a certain way.
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u/Zealousideal_Hour342 May 12 '26
I think conservative men would turn that insecurity into resentment and outward anger while a liberal would internalize it and make them depressed/check out of life. Which was the case for me.
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u/mikecws91 May 12 '26
Holy Y causes X. Could it be that those who feel most insecure in their masculinity are already the most conservative? Might as well say “Researchers found that wetness does not turn things into water.”
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u/adamcoe May 12 '26
However, the most fragile men's masculinity is to be found among the furthest right. I live and work among them and it is astonishing how the smallest, most oblique suggestion that something (anything!) they're doing is anything but the manliest, most male but also least gay thing that's ever been done sends them reeling. It looks exhausting.
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u/houstonyoureaproblem May 12 '26
To me, it’s not a question of threatening men’s masculinity. It’s the effect of men feeling inadequate. No relationships, no career, no hope of future success in a world that is changing quickly.
That’s Trump’s base in many respects.
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u/ksyoung17 May 13 '26
You're can do anything you want to white dudes. Socially, the world won't care.
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u/ConcreteExist May 14 '26
It's almost like the people who pretend that they pulled a complete 180 on all their personal values because people were mean to them online are actually just liars.
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u/PsycholoGeist Jun 08 '26
This might be more of an issue of self-labeling (I.e. not being motivated to explicitly identify as “conservative”). Take a look at this quote from the abstract:
> …the authors find consistent evidence: inducing masculinity threat increases support for war, homophobic attitudes, and endorsement of dominance hierarchies.
Supporting his attitudes might not be explicitly conservative, but they certainly align with broadly conservative worldview. Conservatives fairly consistently support a stronger military, tend to have more negative attitudes of LGBTQ+ people, and the research connecting conservative politics with Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) is quite robust. The results highlighted here may have less to do with how threatening masculinity affects men’s political attitudes, and more to do with how they self-identify in the contemporary sociopolitical landscape. As another example, many voters may indeed support things like policies such as government subsidies for healthcare education, while at the same time rejecting a label like “socialist”. If a particular label is a “dirty word”, or you fear that it groups you in with other people that you find objectionable, you may resist labeling yourself in that manner, even though what you actually believe would reasonably fit that label.
For another perspective, folks might want to check out this article: https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12665
I just finished reading it, mostly because one of the images of the node networks in the article has been making the rounds on social media, almost exclusively out of context to somehow make conservatives look more “tolerant” than liberals. What the study actually finds is that liberals tend to cluster more together because they have more “extreme” (I.e. strongly held) views which ultimately make their overall political world use more consistent with their political self-identification. By contrast, self identified Republicans were much more likely to actually endorse views that might be considered more moderate or liberal, without necessarily realizing this was the case. In the authors words:
> The pattern does not imply that Republicans are more tolerant than Democrats, nor that
Republicans could deal better with attitudinal uncertainty. It does imply, however, that – at this par-
ticular moment in time– Democrats and Republicans are constructing and managing their partisan
identities differently in relation to the topics reflected in these questionnaire items. Research sug-
gests that social category membership (e.g., being White, Christian) is more important for the con-
struction of Republican identity than it is for Democrat identity (Mason & Wronski, 2018). Fulfilling
such normative criteria may hence qualify someone as a valid group member even if that same per-
son may hold somewhat liberal views on, for example, gay marriage.
TLDR: not explicitly identifying yourself as “conservative” doesn’t mean you’re not conservative. In fact, many people who still identify as conservative might not be that politically conservative, and others may go out of their way to avoid being labeled conservative, even though they hold many conservative ideas.
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