Defensive reactions to masculinity threat.

Abstract

Compensatory behavior are defined as behaviors that are intended to make up for a perceived lack of competency in a particular area. The present studies investigated how men compensate for perceived masculinity threats. The first study found that men who are under a state of masculinity threat will derogate a fellow in-group member in order to compensate for their own perceived deficits. The second study found that men under a state of masculinity threat will psychologically distance themselves from in-group members who are behaving in contrast to the expectations of the group. Specifically, the second study found that compared to non-threatened men, masculinity threatened men tend to assign harsher bail amounts to perpetrators of sexual orientation based hate crimes, specifically when they learned that the hate crime occurred close to home, which further promote in-group identification. Implications for the study of masculinity threat and compensational behaviors are discussed.--Abstract.