Lizzio-Wilson, M. orcid.org/0000-0001-5446-8870, Thai, M., Hersey, M. et al. (1 more author) (2025) Stuck in the middle: men experience countervailing reactions to discussions about misogyny and violence against women. Psychology of Men & Masculinities. ISSN 1524-9220
Abstract
Across three pre-registered studies (total N = 1344), we sought to understand how men react to discussions about violence against women. Initially, we expected that highly identified men would react defensively. That is, exposure to anti-violence advocacy would lead highly identified men to engage in outgroup derogation (i.e., minimise the prevalence of violence against women, exaggerate women’s gender-based privilege), ingroup favouritism (i.e., subtype perpetrators of violence, support men’s rights activism); and reduce their willingness to engage in collection action to end violence against women. We further expected that these reactions would be explained by social identity threat over concerns that men were being unfairly derided and negatively stereotyped. However, the findings revealed a more complex pattern of responding. On the one hand, exposure to these discussions (versus a control message) elicited social identity threat which, in turn, predicted higher outgroup derogation and ingroup favouring responses (Studies 1-3) and lower action intentions (Studies 2 and 3). But exposure also elicited collective guilt (Studies 2 and 3) and perceived injustice regarding women’s disadvantage (Study 3), which predicted lower outgroup derogation and ingroup favouritism, and higher action intentions. These opposing reactions fully offset each other and were not moderated by ingroup identification. These findings uncover a paradox in the fight for gender parity by showing that, in the face of messages that highlight inequality, men exhibit countervailing motivations to both protect their group’s interests and better women’s treatment. We discuss the implications of these findings for involving men in gender equality efforts
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 The Authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in Psychology of Men & Masculinities is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | social identity threat; men’s rights support; allyship, backlash; gender equality |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of Law |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 20 May 2025 10:10 |
Last Modified: | 20 May 2025 10:10 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | American Psychological Association (APA) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1037/men0000514 |
Related URLs: | |
Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:226873 |