Parent masculinity beliefs predict adolescent boys’ aggressive cognition under threat

• In Event: The role of parents and environments in shaping the children's gendered attitudes and cognition

Abstract

Past research shows that identity threats elicit compensatory aggression from men but not women (Vandello & Bosson, 2013). Less is known about why certain men are more likely to respond aggressively to such threats. Stanaland and Gaither (2021) proposed one developmental moderator: the extent to which men become extrinsically motivated to be stereotypically masculine during/around adolescence. Here, we test this hypothesis, specifically examining the pressure that adolescent boys experience from their parents during puberty to be stereotypically masculine as antecedent to their masculinity threat responsivity. We conducted two separate analyses: first, we tested whether parent beliefs are predictive of extrinsic conformity motivations (Analysis 1), and then we assessed whether these extrinsic conformity motivations predict aggressive cognition under threat (Analysis 2).

We recruited N = 250 10–14-year-old, English-speaking, cisgender boys and their parents. For Analysis 1, data from 13 pairs were excluded for boys’ non-attentiveness, resulting in n = 238 (Mage = 12.26, SD = 1.28; 75.6% white). For Analysis 2, we excluded 32 adolescents for not reporting their pubertal stage (Mage = 12.34, SD = 1.48; 78.3% white). Parent beliefs were assessed using the Male Role Norms Inventory (e.g., “A man should never admit when others hurt his feelings”; Levant et al., 2007; α = .94). Boys completed the parallel Male Role Norms Inventory-Adolescent (e.g., “Guys should play with trucks rather than dolls”; Levant et al., 2008; α = .94), as well as measures of their typicality (e.g., “I have the same interests other boys have”; Egan & Perry, 2001; α = .68), pressure from parents (e.g., “My parents would be upset if I acted like a girl”; Egan & Perry, 2001; α = .84), extrinsic motivations (e.g., “I'm like other guys because I want people to like me”; Stanaland & Gaither, 2021; α = .87), and pubertal stage (e.g. “I’ve started growing body hair”; Koopman-Verhoeff et al., 2020; α = .81). Masculinity threat was induced by randomly assigning boys to receive feedback from a fake gender knowledge quiz—either that they scored like other boys (no threat) or scored more like other girls than boys (threat). Aggressive cognition was assessed using a classic word-completion task, where higher proportions of words completed aggressively (versus non-aggressively) represented more aggressive thinking (e.g., Anderson & Carnagey, 2009).

In Analysis 1, we found that parents’ masculinity beliefs predicted boys’ felt pressure from their parents, which in turn predicted their extrinsic conformity to masculinity norms (Figure 1). Typicality did not moderate this effect. In Analysis 2, we found this extrinsic conformity predicted post-pubertal boys’ aggressive cognition under threat, β = .10, p= .002, 95% CI [0.04, 0.17] exclusively at the latest stage of puberty, β = .08, F(1, 198) = 8.02, p = .005 (Figure 2). Altogether, these results suggest that the threat effect observed among adult men may solidify by the end of puberty, driven in part by their parents’ beliefs about masculinity. We will discuss implications for developmental research on boys’ gender identity development as well as practical efforts to mitigate boys’ and men’s harmful threat responses.

Authors

• Adam Stanaland, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Sarah Elizabeth Gaither, Duke Univeristy

• Anna Gassman-Pines, Duke Univeristy