When certain boys feel their masculinity is threatened, aggression ensues

It’s been long established that certain men become aggressive when they see their manhood as being threatened. When does this behavior emerge during development—and why? A new study by a team of psychology researchers shows that adolescent boys may also respond aggressively when they believe their masculinity is under threat—especially boys growing up in environments with rigid, stereotypical gender norms. 

The findings, reported in the journal Developmental Science, underscore the effects of social pressure that many boys face to be stereotypically masculine.

“We know that not all men respond aggressively to manhood threats—in past work, we have found that it is primarily men whose stereotypical masculinity is socially pressured who are the most aggressive under such threats,” says Adam Stanaland, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University and the paper’s lead author. “Now we have evidence that certain adolescent boys respond similarly, pointing to the foundations of these potentially harmful processes.”

“Beyond just aggression, manhood threats are associated with a wide variety of negative, antisocial behaviors, such as sexism, homophobia, political bigotry, and even anti-environmentalism,” adds Stanaland. “Our findings call for actively challenging the restrictive norms and social pressure that boys face to be stereotypically masculine, particularly during puberty and coming from their parents and peers.”

Studies have long shown that perceived threats to men’s “gender typicality”—the alignment of appearance and behaviors with societal expectations for women and men—can cause them to engage in harmful behaviors intended to reassert their typicality. The researchers in the new study sought to understand the development of this phenomenon and the social environments in which it occurs.

Stanaland, as a Duke University doctoral student, led this experiment, which included more than 200 adolescent boys in the US and one of their parents. Boys first reported on the extent to which their motivation to be masculine was internally motivated or instead driven by a desire to gain other people’s approval or avoid their disapproval. The boys then played a game in which they answered five questions stereotypical of masculinity (e.g., “Which of these tools is a Phillips-head screwdriver?”) and five questions stereotypical of femininity (e.g.,  “Which of these flowers is a poppy fairy?”). At random, they were told that their score was either atypical of their gender (i.e., more like girls and a “threat” to their masculinity) or typical of their gender (i.e., more like other boys and nonthreatening). 

To measure aggression, the study’s authors then asked the study’s participants to partake in a cognitive task: completing a series of word stems (e.g., “GU_”) that could be completed either aggressively (e.g., “GUN”) or not (e.g., “GUY” or “GUT”). In this commonly used task, the key indicator is the proportion of aggressive word completions. 

The study also took into account demographic and other variables. In an effort to pinpoint the life stage in which gender typicality could have an effect on aggression, the boys, with parental approval, responded to questions on the Pubertal Development Scale, a standard and validated measure of puberty. They answered questions pertaining to changes in their voice and facial-hair growth, among others, rated on the following scale: 1=not yet started, 2=barely started, 3=definitely started, or 4=seems complete. Given the sensitivity of this scale, participants were allowed to select “I don’t know” or “Prefer not to say” to any item.

Finally, the researchers considered environmental sources that might pressure the boys to be motivated to be gender-typical, including the pressure they said they felt from peers, parents, and themselves. They also asked the participating parents about their beliefs relating to gender. 

The questions and data may be found on the Center for Open Science website. 

The experimental results showed the following:

• Similar to young adult men, adolescent boys in mid-to-late puberty (but not before) responded with aggression to perceived threats to their gender typicality.
• Aggression was heightened among boys whose motivation to be gender typical was due to pressure from others (i.e., driven by social expectations) rather than from within themselves.
• The boys most likely to reveal this “pressured motivation” were those whose parents endorsed stereotypical beliefs about men’s status and power (e.g., that men should have more power than people of other genders).

“Men’s aggression presents challenges for societies across the world, ranging from public safety to intimate personal relationships,” observes Andrei Cimpian, a professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology and the paper’s senior author. “By identifying when and why certain boys begin showing aggressive responses to masculinity threats, this research is a first step in preventing the development of ‘fragile’ masculinities—masculinities that need to be constantly proved and reasserted—and their many negative consequences among adult men.”

The paper’s other authors included Sarah Gaither and Anna Gassman-Pines, professors at Duke University, and Daniela Galvez-Cepeda, a research assistant in Cimpian’s Cognitive Development Lab and a recent Williams College graduate.

The research was funded, in part, by the Charles Lafitte Foundation.

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