New Study, Also Everyone You Know: Dudes Lie When They Feel Weak
LatestDudes like to feel like dudes, and some would argue, they need to feel like dudes—or else. So the surest route to provoking a certain sort of dude to dude out is to question his dudeness in any way. It’s a truth as old as time and as obvious as its passing, but now, a very validating study has backed up the truth of dude overcompensation in a fairly hilarious way.
The University of Washington pulled off some straight-up trickery for their study, published recently in Social Psychology, by convincing dudes they were participating in research about how exertion affects decision-making. This was technically true; what was not true at all what the men (all students at Stanford) were told about the handgrip device they were asked to hold in the study. The device would test their strength, researchers said, when in reality it would test nothing except for their indirect feelings about their own masculinity. (Question: Was the study was advertised with a sign that read FREE BEER TITS? Answer: I got somethin’ you can squeeze right here.)
Some unlucky participants were then told by researchers that their grip was subpar, and by subpar, they meant—gasp—like a woman’s. This was demonstrated by a very sad fake bell curve (the photo, unfortunately for all of us, was not provided). Next, the participants filled out a questionnaire about their height, previous relationships, personality, and their opinions on consumer products that were deliberately masculine or feminine.
The result: Dudes who were told they were weak pretended to be taller in the questionnaire. By nearly an inch. They quite literally puffed themselves up on paper to compensate for feeling like pussies in reality.
According to the study’s accompanying press release, they:
…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.
This didn’t happen with the men who were told they were average, though.
Cheryan devised a second test that involved the men answering questions about personal attributes and consumer preferences, and then being told about possible products—deliberately skewed masculine or feminine—they could receive as compensation. As in the first experiment, some of the men were told they scored average or low in terms of masculinity. Those who scored low were less likely to choose the feminine products.
The study’s co-author, Benoit Monin, says both studies reinforce the idea 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.”
Yes. Well. I don’t know about you, but one of the things that has always made me feel great about being a woman is knowing that it’s literally about the most pathetic thing you could be as far as a lot of men are concerned. The knowledge really does wonders for your self esteem.