This book shows that masculinity is not just an ideology that men strive for. This is what we value as a culture, said lead author Teresa Vescio, professor of psychology and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Pennsylvania State University.
The beauty of masculinity as a cultural ideology is that we can involve women and get them to accept it, even if it subjugates them. We can get men of colour, men of low socio-economic status and homosexuals to agree, even if it is implicitly submissive, Vescio says.
About half of the seven studies published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America recognized the male-dominated hierarchy and predicted a positive assessment of Trump beyond any sexist, racist, or homophobic opinion a voter might have.
This would increase the number of Latin American and black men who trump… or white women who support Trump, Vescio said.
It’s an interesting study, and the results are relatively robust to the idea that hegemonic masculinity predicts voices and candidate attitudes, even after checking for other variables that might be expected to predict political behavior, Christopher Federico, a political scientist and professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota who did not participate in the study, said in an e-mail.
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The results are merely observations and cannot show direct cause and effect, but they are consistent with previous research that has shown that dominance scores and low rankings for collaboration were predictors of support for Trump, according to Federico, who is also director of the University Center for the Study of Political Psychology.
It is only logical that people who value a form of masculinity that emphasizes control, hardness, etc., should be able to do so. Trump, Federico said, adding that people with traditional views on gender and traditional beliefs about appropriate roles for men and women in society tend to support Trump more strongly as well.
Seven studies on two terms
Researchers asked more than 2,000 people questions in seven separate surveys conducted over two election periods. The six studies were conducted by Vescio and his colleague in the days and months following Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential race against the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The seventh opinion poll was held 50 days before the November 2020 elections, in which Trump was defeated by former US Vice President Joseph Biden.
The participants were recruited from both the student pool of Pennsylvania State University and from two crowdsourcing applications. Students received part of the tuition fees, while other participants received $0.50 or $9.66 per hour.
While male preferences predicted support for Trump, a bias was a more consistent predictor of voices, according to the study. According to the study, further research is needed to fully understand the predicted outcomes of (hegemonic) versus overt bias.
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Matthew Feinberg, Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the University of Toronto’s Rothman School of Management, expressed his frustration that the data was collected after Trump Clinton defeated in 2016.
Perhaps the people’s attitude, especially about masculinity, was shaped by the fact that Mr. Trump became president, Feinberg said in an e-mail. Many people stuck their nose in the sand and voted for him in 2016. They chose to vote for their favorite party, despite Trump’s behavior and his notion of hegemonic masculinity.
However, processes such as cognitive dissonance often mean that people adjust their attitudes to the behaviour they adopt, added Feinberg. If this is the case, those whose attitude towards Trump and his plea for hegemonic masculinity have come to believe that they too have an attitude more in keeping with that of Trump.
Vescio referred to a 2020 study that examined pre-election relationships and said cognitive dissonance does not explain the data she found.
We can’t completely rule it out. But the data doesn’t quite match that, because even when we’re monitoring for Republicans and Democrats, we’re getting effects beyond that, she said.
More than one shaky male identity
The seven studies also suggest that hegemonic masculinity is a more predictable endorsement for Trump than the concept known as precarious masculinity, or PMI, in which masculinity is obtained and maintained through continuous behavioral manifestations of masculinity, while short-term gaps in behavioral manifestations of masculinity may threaten masculinity, the authors of the study write.
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The study indicates that the presence of a dangerous male identity has traditionally been seen as the main reason why men join Trump, but this does not explain the support among women and some minorities.
The underlying idea is that masculinity is more vulnerable than femininity and must be constantly won and maintained in public. Men who feel (or have felt) that their status as men is inadequate are more likely to support trump card, Federico said.
One of the reasons is that Trump – at least in the character he plays in public – exudes too dominant a masculinity. So supporting him could be a way to take up the idea or to show courage by supporting a male representative, he said.
Some studies have also shown that PMI is associated with other aggressive attitudes, such as B. support for the culture of weapons and militarism, Federico said, as well as more sexism and opposition to equal rights.
To the extent that Trump is perceived to support these positions, people can indirectly support Trump more because he is perceived to support these positions, he added.
However, the fact that the new study found that PMI was less predictable than a preference for hegemonic masculinity makes sense for both sexes, Federico explained.
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