Challenging masculinity makes men 'act macho'

[Amelia]

Challenging masculinity makes men 'act macho'

By Charnicia Huggins

Reuters

Friday, August 12, 2005

A new study shows that if a man is told he is not "man enough", he tends to overcompensate by acting macho.

The study shows men whose masculinity is challenged are more likely to support the Iraq war, exhibit homophobia or think about buying a four-wheel-drive car.

"In general, men in our society are very invested in maintaining a masculine identity," study author Robb Willer, a PhD student in sociology at Cornell University, said.

The idea of masculine overcompensation is not new.

Mr Willer says with roots in Freudian psychology, the concept has been popularly accepted as true but not necessarily proven.

Some 111 male and female undergraduate students at Cornell completed gender identity surveys, in which they rated themselves on a number of traditionally male and female traits such as assertiveness, forcefulness and yielding.

Mr Willer then gave the students random feedback, although the students believed the feedback was genuinely based on their survey responses.

Some men were told that their survey responses were indicative of a female identity and others were told the opposite.

The same was true for women, who were used as the comparison group.

Afterwards, Mr Willer asked the students to complete a survey that examined their attitudes about certain masculine concepts.

Men who were told that their initial survey responses were more feminine than masculine, tended to overcompensate for it in the second survey.

These men also reported more feelings of shame, guilt, upset and hostility than those whose masculinity was not threatened.

Women unmoved

Women apparently did not care about their identity rating.

Those who were told that their survey responses were more masculine than feminine did not show any feminine overcompensation.

In future research, Mr Willer wants to examine whether masculinity is associated with attitudes on violence toward women.

He also wants to replicate the current study to determine whether men's testosterone levels may be an intervening factor between men's insecurity about their masculinity and masculine overcompensation.

The study is due to be presented next week at the American Sociological Association conference in Philadelphia.

- ABC/Reuters