Post Date April, 15 2023
If you are a male, what you heard when you were a child is, "You are a boy, don't cry like a girl
When I grow up, this sentence becomes, "Are you a man
Our society's demands for masculinity and masculinity have remained unchanged for thousands of years. According to a report from Xinhua International, a new study by American scientists has found that when men feel that their "masculine" image is damaged or has not yet been achieved, they will take very typical measures to compensate for their masculinity: exaggerating their masculinity or expressing disgust towards women.
In the latest issue of social psychology, researchers from the University of Washington reported that they recruited a number of college boys at Stanford University as volunteers to test their grip strength.
On the report form of grip strength results, researchers specifically added a female grip strength curve and intentionally made some volunteers' test results show that they are close to or even lower than women.
Next, the volunteers received a questionnaire survey, asking them to fill in their height, number of girlfriends they have had before, some personality traits, and interest in certain products. Researchers have deliberately designed some questions to distract volunteers, making it difficult for them to guess the actual purpose of the questionnaire.
During the filling out process, compared to volunteers who received normal test results, those who had their "masculinity" affected exaggerated their height by 2 centimeters, claiming that their "love history" was more complex and rich than reality, and filling out their athletic ability and aggression were also higher than reality. At the same time, they showed even greater disdain for some feminine products.
Researchers believe that the exaggerated filling results indicate the efforts and compensation that men make to become so-called "men" under traditional social pressure.
In the second questionnaire that follows, the researchers asked volunteers to directly conduct a "masculinity test". The volunteers were told that the average score for masculinity was 72 to 100 points, which was "100% true masculinity", but the participants' scores were randomly assigned to 26 to 73 points. Researchers allowed volunteers to choose some gifts as test compensation, and the results showed that those with lower scores were more likely to choose products that highlighted "masculinity".
Mo Ning, one of the researchers and professor of organizational behavior and psychology at Stanford University, said that research shows that men have always been under an invisible and powerful social cognitive standard, and they are trying to correct their "due" male image every moment. This discovery, although somewhat humorous, coincides with many previous studies.
For example, previous studies have found that men with a baby face are always too confident, have less friendly personalities, and have a higher crime rate compared to their more mature peers. Men who are often accused of lacking masculinity tend to behave more aggressively, are more likely to violate women, and ridicule their peers in language. Some surveys have also found that unemployed men are more likely to become perpetrators of domestic violence, while men who earn less in the family are less willing to share household chores.
Researchers believe that these actions and behavior patterns are essentially efforts made by men to repair their masculinity.
