From as young as 4, children see males as more powerful than females
January 9, 2020
Science Daily/CNRS
As early as 4 years old, children associate power and masculinity, even in countries considered to be more egalitarian like Norway. This is what scientists at the Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod (CNRS/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1) report, in collaboration with the Universities of Oslo (Norway), Lausanne and Neuchâtel (Switzerland), in a study published on 7 January 2020 in Sex Roles. They also show that in some situations the power-masculinity association does not manifest in girls.
We know little about how representations of power interact with gender in early childhood. Researchers at the Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod (CNRS/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1), in collaboration with the Universities of Oslo (Norway), Lausanne and Neuchâtel (Switzerland) wanted to know whether children aged 3 to 6 years old in France, Lebanon, and Norway attribute more power to masculine figures than feminine figures.
In a first experiment, they showed the children a picture with two non-gendered individuals. One of them adopted a dominant physical posture and the other a subordinate posture. First the children had to guess which of these two individuals was exerting power over the other. Next they had to assign a gender to each individual (Who is the girl? Who is the boy?). The results reveal that from 4 years old, a large majority of children consider the dominant individual to be a boy. The power-masculinity association was observed in both boys and girls, and just as much in Lebanon as in France and Norway. However it was not significant in 3-year old children.
In a second experiment, this time in children aged 4 and 5 years old all in school in France, had to imagine themselves in the picture and imagine the other person as a boy or a girl. When the children had to consider their power relation with a person of the same gender as themselves, the girls and boys both largely identified with the dominant character. But when they had to consider their power relation with a person of the opposite gender, boys identified more often with the dominant character whereas girls did not significantly identify more with one or other of the characters.
Finally, in a third experiment, children aged 4 and 5 years old in Lebanon and France watched a series of exchanges between two puppets, one representing a girl and the other a boy, behind a board1. In one case, the puppets were getting ready to play a game together and the child heard one impose their choices on the other. In the other case, one puppet had more money than the other to buy ice cream. In France and Lebanon, most of the boys thought that the puppet that imposed their choices or that had more money was the male puppet. However, the girls in both countries did not attribute the dominant position preferably to one or other gender.
These results show that children have early sensitivity to a gender hierarchy, though in some situations girls do not associate power and masculinity. The scientists now hope to find out what power forms they attribute to feminine figures and whether they legitimise the expression of gendered power.
Note: The puppets, which were shown to the children before being hidden behind the board, were manipulated by the same speaker and "spoke" with the same voice, working as in a cartoon. So, behind the board, it was not to possible to differentiate them by their voice.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200109111105.htm
Manning up: Men may overcompensate when their masculinity is threatened
June 22, 2015
Science Daily/University of Washington
Societal norms dictating that men should be masculine are powerful. A new study finds that men who believe they fall short of those ideals might reassert their masculinity in small but significant ways.
From the old Charles Atlas ads showing a scrawny male having sand kicked in his face to sitcom clichés of henpecked husbands, men have long faced pressure to live up to ideals of masculinity.
Societal norms dictating that men should be masculine are powerful. And new University of Washington research finds that men who believe they fall short of those ideals might be prompted to reassert their masculinity in small but significant ways.
Published last week in Social Psychology, the research sought to understand how men respond when their masculinity is threatened, and looked at two specific strategies they might employ: playing up their manliness and rejecting feminine preferences.
The study found that male college students who were given falsely low results on a handgrip strength test exaggerated their height by three-quarters of an inch on average, reported having more romantic relationships, claimed to be more aggressive and athletic, and showed less interest in stereotypically feminine consumer products.
By contrast, men who received average score results, and whose masculinity was therefore not threatened, did not exaggerate those characteristics. The findings, researchers say, underscore the pressure men feel to live up to gender stereotypes and the ways in which they might reinstate a threatened masculinity.
'We know that being seen as masculine is very important for a lot of men,' said lead author Sapna Cheryan, a UW associate professor of psychology. 'We discovered that the things that men were using to assert their masculinity were the very things that are used as signals of identity.'
The research involved male students at Stanford University, where Cheryan received her doctorate in psychology. The students were told they were participating in research on how exertion impacts decision-making and were asked to squeeze a handheld device with each hand.
Researchers marked their scores on sheets that showed bogus bell curves representing male and female results, with the female curve clearly lower than the male one. Participants were scored either in the middle of the female or the male curve, suggesting that their grip was either weak or average.
They were then asked to fill out a questionnaire asking about their height, number of previous relationships, various personality traits and their interest in products that skewed male or female, along with 'distracter questions' about things like college major that were intended to allay potential suspicion about the study.
Cheryan said the consistent exaggeration about height among the group who thought they scored lower was particularly surprising.
'Height is something you think would be fixed, but how tall you say you are is malleable, at least for men,' she said.
Though the study focused exclusively on men, Cheryan noted that women also feel pressure to live up to gender ideals of femininity, such as being people-focused and nurturing. If women believe they are falling short of those expectations, Cheryan said, they might make choices with potentially negative consequences to demonstrate that they fit gender norms -- for example, avoiding classes in traditionally male fields such as science and technology.
Cheryan got the idea for the experiments from a men's fitness magazine she was reading while working out at the gym several years ago. The magazine had a feature that asked men on the street how much they could bench press and then brought them into a gym to put their statements to the test.
Most couldn't bench what they claimed they could, and that got Cheryan thinking: What would those men do, she wondered, now that their masculinity was threatened? Would they acknowledge that they weren't as strong as they perhaps thought? Try to bolster their manliness in response?
So Cheryan devised the handgrip experiment and a second one that required a male group of students to take a computer-based masculinity test with multiple-choice questions about consumer preferences and personal attributes.
In the second experiment, the participants were told the median score on the test was 72 out of 100, with 100 being 'completely masculine,' and were randomly given a score of 26 or 73. They were then asked about a range of products they could receive as compensation. As with the handgrip experiment, the participants who thought they scored lower were less interested in more feminine consumer products.
'This research shows that men are under very strong prescriptive norms to be a certain way, and they work hard to correct the image they project when their masculinity is under threat,' said co-author Benoît Monin, a professor of organizational behavior and psychology at Stanford University
The findings might seem amusing, but other studies have found that men compensate for a lack of masculinity in ways that aren't as innocuous. Men with baby faces, for example, were more likely to have assertive and hostile personalities and commit crimes than their more chiseled counterparts. Men who were told they scored low on masculinity tests were more likely to act aggressively, harass women and belittle other men.
Additionally, unemployed men were more likely to instigate violence against women, and men who were not their household's primary breadwinner were less willing to share in housework duties.
Identifying the various strategies men use when their masculinity is threatened, Cheryan said, can help with understanding male behavior in real-life situations.
'Men have a lot of power in our society, and what this study shows is that some decisions can be influenced by how they're feeling about their masculinity in the moment,' she said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150622150347.htm