Adolescent boys often react aggressively to threats to masculinity, influenced by societal pressures to conform. The study suggests that interventions during puberty can reduce harmful male behaviors.
The new study shows that the impact of pressure during puberty is stereotypically male.
Research shows that adolescent boys display increased aggression when their masculinity is perceived as threatened, particularly under social pressures to conform to traditional masculine norms. The study highlights the importance of addressing these pressures during puberty to prevent negative behaviors associated with fragile masculinity.
It has long been proven that some men become aggressive when they see their manhood being threatened. When does this behavior occur during development – and why? A new study by a team of psychological researchers shows that adolescent boys can also respond aggressively when they believe their masculinity is under threat — especially boys who grow up in environments with rigid, stereotypical gender norms.
The findings were reported today (July 15) in the journal Developmental sciencehighlight the effects of the social pressure many boys face to be stereotypically masculine.
Social pressures and negative behaviors associated with threats to masculinity
“We know that not all men react aggressively to threats to masculinity—in past work, we’ve found that it’s mostly men whose stereotypical masculinity is under social pressure who are most aggressive under such threats ,” says Adam Stanaland, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University and lead author of the paper. “We now have evidence that some adolescent boys react in a similar way, pointing to the underpinnings of these potentially harmful processes.”
“Beyond aggression, threats to masculinity 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 boys face to be stereotypically masculine, especially during puberty and coming from their parents and peers.”
Study design and experimental setup
Studies have long shown that perceived threats to men’s “gender typicality”—the alignment of appearance and behavior with societal expectations for women and men—can lead them to engage in harmful behaviors intended to reaffirm their typicality. Researchers in the new study sought to understand the development of this phenomenon and the social settings in which it occurs.
Stanaland, as a doctoral student at Duke University, led the experiment, which involved more than 200 teenage boys in the US and one of their parents. Boys first reported 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 stereotypical masculinity questions (e.g., “Which of these tools is a Phillips screwdriver?”) and five stereotypical femininity questions (e.g., “ Which of these flowers is a poppy fairy?”). Randomly, they were told that their outcome was either atypical of their gender (ie, more like girls and a “threat” to their masculinity) or typical of their gender (ie, more like other boys and not threatening).
To measure aggression, the study authors then asked study participants to participate in a cognitive task: completing a series of word stems (e.g., “GU_”) that could be completed either aggressively (e.g., e.g., “GUN”) or not (e.g., “GUY” or “GUT”). In this commonly used task, the main indicator is the proportion of aggressive word completions.
Findings and implications for future research
The study also took into account demographics and other variables. In an attempt to determine the stage of life at which gender typicality may have an effect on aggression, the boys, with parental approval, answered questions on the Pubertal Development Scale, a standard and validated measure of puberty. They answered questions about changes in their voice and facial hair growth, among others, rated on the following scale: 1=not yet started, 2=hardly started, 3=definitely started, or 4 =looks finished. Given the sensitivity of this scale, participants were allowed to select “Don’t know” or “Prefer not to say” for any item.
Finally, the researchers considered environmental sources that may have pressured the boys to be motivated to be gender typical, including the pressure they said they felt from peers, parents, and themselves. They also asked participating parents about their beliefs about gender.
Questions and data can be found at the Center for Open Science Web page.
The experimental results showed the following:
- Similar to young adult men, adolescent boys in middle and late puberty (but not earlier) responded with aggression to perceived threats to their gender identity.
- Aggression increased among boys whose motivation to be gender-typical was due to pressure from others (ie, driven by social expectations) rather than from within themselves.
- The boys most likely to reveal this “motivation under duress” were those whose parents endorsed stereotypical beliefs about men’s status and power (eg, that men should have more power than people of the other sex).
“Male aggression poses challenges to societies around the world, ranging from public safety to intimate personal relationships,” notes Andrei Cimpian, professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology and senior author of the paper. “By identifying when and why some boys begin to show aggressive responses to masculinity threats, this research is a first step in preventing the development of ‘fragile’ masculinities—masculinities that need to be constantly tested and reaffirmed—and their consequences many negative in adult men. .”
Reference: “Adolescent boys’ aggressive responses to perceived threats to their gender identity” by Adam Stanaland, Sarah Gaither, Anna Gassman-Pines, Daniela Galvez-Cepeda, and Andrei Cimpian, 15 July 2024, Developmental science.
DOI: 10.1111/ex.13544
Other authors of the paper included Sarah Gaither and Anna Gassman-Pines, professors at Duke University, and Daniela Galvez-Cepeda, a research assistant in the Cimpian Cognitive Development Laboratory and a recent graduate of Williams College.
The research was funded, in part, by the Charles Lafitte Foundation.