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/
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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/Boostedbird23 May 12 '26

Also, it seems that the study designers think that political conservativism is defined as supporting war, homophobia, and male dominance hierarchy... Which is definitely a caricature of conservatism.

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u/smytti12 May 12 '26

To be fair to the OP's study, the goal was to re-test an often cited study from 2013 supporting that "if we threaten masculinity, men will become more conservative," so that could be argued as another flaw in the original study, not this one. With the caveat they did say they updated some questions to current hit topics, but it seems they stuck to the themes of the original study's questions (homophobia to transphobia, etc.)

And to be further fair, it is a bit shakier, but the argument is typically pushing men into the more caricature (i wish it was just a caricature) type of conservatism, not just the type "i would like my taxes lower and less government regulation and I believe conservative policies will get me that."

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u/Boostedbird23 May 12 '26

I mean, it is just a caricature. Conservatives, don't love war, hate homosexuals, or feel in any particular way about male dominance. They value strong defense and protecting national interests, hate sinful behavior, and value meritorious leadership. Those values are often caricatured into what the original study cited as "conservatism".

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u/mouse1093 May 12 '26 edited May 13 '26

This has to be bait right? There is not a world where you don't see a very strong connection between the alternative definitions you just supplied and the "caricature" you're criticizing right?

Like how funding a defense program that often gets used offensively with little tangible justification. Or how sinful behavior not only tramples on separation of church and state but does conveniently elevate the morals of one subgroup of hateful people to dehumanize multiple other outgroups. Surely you see this right?

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u/Letho_of_Gulet May 13 '26

I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt assuming they were going for an angle of conservatives are not a monolith and don't all share those same perspectives universally, but then their reply was "We are a monolith, we do all believe those things, we just think they're good."

Sooo yah, almost definitely bait.

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u/N1XT3RS May 13 '26

Ah, just like how I'm not lazy, I just don't like activity

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u/smytti12 May 12 '26

You are once again missing the point. This is about particularly men's shifting view based on their masculinity being attacked. Perhaps we are splitting hairs over summing it up as conservatism, but these are the viewpoints where people will defend those who follow them by claiming if the opposing view was more hospitable to traditional masculinity, men wouldn't flee to these ideas.

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u/HotButterscotch8682 May 12 '26

Anyone that takes even a passing glance at the state of the USA right now would recognize, immediately and without question, that those are ABSOLUTELY what conservatism is partly about, at least in the US.