Contributions of Game Genre and Masculinity Ideologies to Associations Between Video Game Play and Men’s Risk-Taking Behavior

Previous investigations of mainstream video games have documented a high prevalence of risk-promoting content, as well as a positive relation between video game play and participation in risk-taking behaviors such as reckless driving, substance use, and delinquency. In this study, we extend this work by investigating the role of video game genre and masculinity ideology within this relation. A sample of 273 undergraduate men from a large Midwestern university completed online surveys of their video game exposure, masculinity ideology, and participation in a range of high-risk behaviors. Results indicate that playing sports video games is associated with greater alcohol use, drug use, and delinquent behaviors, but action games are only associated with greater delinquency. In contrast, playing online video games was negatively associated with alcohol and drug use. Furthermore, the relation between sports video games and participation in risky behaviors was fully mediated by participants’ adherence to masculinity ideology. These results reveal that the relations between video game play and risk outcomes were strongest for sports video games, and in some cases, were mediated by masculinity ideology.     

Breasts Are for Men: Media, Masculinity Ideologies, and Men’s Beliefs About Women’s Bodies

Although masculinity ideology (MI) has been shown to predict men’s sexual risk-taking, less is known about MI’s contribution to men’s beliefs about women and their sexual bodies. Accordingly, we examined associations between masculine ideology, media consumption, and men’s attitudes about women’s reproductive body functions among a sample of 656 undergraduate men. Participants completed measures assessing their endorsement of traditional gender ideologies, their levels of media exposure and engagement, and their attitudes toward childbirth and breastfeeding. It was hypothesized that media use would contribute to traditional MI, and that traditional MI would contribute to negative views about breastfeeding and childbirth. Results supported these individual connections, but not a mediated model. Discussion focuses on implications of these findings for women’s lives.     

Heterosexual Men’s Confrontation of Sexual Prejudice: The Role of Precarious Manhood

Prejudice and discrimination are unfortunate common realities for sexual minorities yet people rarely confront such behavior (Dickter 2012). This is especially problematic because confronting prejudice is one of the most effective weapons against it (e.g., Czopp and Monteith 2003). The present study explores whether men who perceive manhood to be an impermanent state easily taken away by engaging in gender role violations (i.e., precarious manhood; Vandello et al. 2008) are less likely to react negatively to sexually prejudiced interaction partners and therefore less likely to confront sexual prejudice. In addition, we tested whether non-confrontation serves to affirm meta-perceptions of heterosexuality. To test this hypothesis, 88 heterosexual, young adult males, drawn from the undergraduate population of a university in the northeastern U.S., were randomly assigned to either pair with a confederate who expressed blatant sexual prejudice or no blatant prejudice toward a gay applicant in a hiring discussion. Consistent with predictions, precarious manhood predicted lower rates of confronting sexual prejudice, and less negative responses to their interaction partner, while confronting prejudice was associated with believing one would be viewed as gay regardless of individual differences in precarious manhood.     

Being Fit and Looking Healthy: Young Women’s and Men’s Constructions of Health and Fitness

We drew on Foucault's notion of ‘practices of the self’ to examine how young people take up, negotiate, and resist the imperatives of a public health discourse concerned with the relationships between health, fitness, and the body. We did this through a discussion of the ways young women and men talk about their own and others' bodies, in the context of a number of in-depth interviews conducted for the Life Activity Project, a study of the place and meaning of physical activity in young people's lives, funded by an Australian Research Council Grant. We found that the young women and men in the study engaged the health/fitness discourse very differently: for the young men, health conflated with fitness as an embodied capacity to do physical work; and for the young women, health was a much more difficult and complex project associated with managing and monitoring practices associated with eating and exercise to maintain an ‘appropriate’ body shape.     

Video Game Characters and the Socialization of Gender Roles: Young People’s Perceptions Mirror Sexist Media Depictions

Video game characters are icons in youth popular culture, but research on their role in gender socialization is rare. A content analysis of images of video game characters from top-selling American gaming magazines showed male characters (83%) are more likely than female characters (62%) to be portrayed as aggressive. Female characters are more likely than male characters to be portrayed as sexualized (60% versus 1%), scantily clad (39% versus 8%) and as showing a mix of sex and aggression (39 versus 1%). A survey of teens confirmed that stereotypes of male characters as aggressive and female characters as sexually objectified physical specimens are held even by non-gamers. Studies are discussed in terms of the role media plays in socializing sexism.     

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Gender Stereotype!: Longitudinal Associations Between Superhero Viewing and Gender Stereotyped Play

Although content analyses have found that superhero programs in the media portray strong gender stereotypes of masculinity, little research has examined the effects of viewing such programs. In the current study, 134 mothers of preschool children (from the Western and Northwestern United States) reported their child’s superhero exposure in the media, male-stereotyped play, weapon play, and parental active mediation of the media at two time points (1 year apart). Results revealed that boys viewed superhero programs more frequently than girls, with nearly a quarter of boys viewing superhero programs at least weekly. Analyses revealed that superhero exposure was related to higher levels of male-stereotyped play for boys and higher levels of weapon play for both boys and girls from Time 1 to Time 2, even after controlling for initial levels. Parental active mediation did not negate these effects, and even served to strengthen one finding for girls. Specifically, among girls with high superhero exposure, weapon play was highest for girls who received frequent active mediation. Implications of the results are discussed with a focus on whether such programs are developmentally appropriate for preschool children.     

Reference Points in Men’s and Women’s Judgments of Progress Toward Gender Equality

Men rate progress toward gender equality more favorably than do women. Across two studies with U.S. undergraduate samples, we explore whether this difference in perceived progress stems from a gender difference in chosen reference points. Using ANOVA and regression, we demonstrate that men (n?=?33) assess progress relative to the past more than to the goal of full equality. In contrast, women (n?=?46) assess progress relative to full equality as much as to the past. As a result, current progress seems more substantial to men than to women. Experimental manipulation of reference points led men (n?=?60) and women (n?=?60) to adopt the same reference point and, consequently, to offer similar assessments of progress.     

Men’s Discomfort and Anticipated Sexual Misclassification Due to Counter-Stereotypical Behaviors: the Interplay between Traditional Masculinity Norms and Perceived Men’s Femininization

Sex Roles - The present research examines men’s self-conscious discomfort while imagining performing counter-stereotypical (traditionally feminine) behaviors as compared to stereotypical...     

When Women’s Gains Equal Men’s Losses: Predicting a Zero-Sum Perspective of Gender Status

Believing that reduced discrimination against women directly corresponds to increased discrimination against men, referred to as a zero-sum perspective (ZSP), may inhibit further attempts toward gender equality. Based on a sample of 313 men and women, we developed and tested both a general measure and a domain-specific measure of the ZSP of gender status then examined sociodemographics (age, education, political orientation, religious beliefs, and past experience with discrimination) and social dominance orientation as predictors of the ZSP of shifts in gender status. Hostile and modern sexism were examined as potential mediators of this relationship. Structural equation models were computed to examine predictive paths separately for men and women. Although some similarities were found, results showed important differences in predictive paths for women and men, and supported the expected mediating role of sexism in the relationships between sociodemographic predictors and the ZSP. Findings have implications for targeting intervention efforts to enhance a win-win or non-zero-sum perspective that may facilitate efforts toward reducing gender discrimination.     

Differential Associations Between Relational and Overt Aggression and Children’s Psychosocial Adjustment

Although much research has focused on the association between childhood aggression and negative psychosocial adjustment, the link between the subtypes of aggression and adjustment is less clear, particularly for relational aggression. The current study examined whether overt and relational aggression in childhood (M = 10.4 years, SD = 1.1) are differentially associated with four psychosocial adjustment outcomes (i.e., academic performance, social problems, depression, and delinquency). Results indicated that relational aggression was negatively associated with academic performance, while overt aggression was positively associated with delinquency. Additionally, findings suggested gender differences in the link between aggression subtypes and social problems. Specifically, overt aggression was positively associated with social problems for boys and relational aggression was positively associated with social problems for girls. Neither subtype of aggression was uniquely associated with depression. Thus, this study suggests that psychosocial outcomes may differ depending on the form of aggression that is utilized.     

Gender and Compensation: Understanding the Impact of Gender and Gender Stereotypes in Children’s Rewards

Children’s understanding of rewards for task completion was examined in the context of gender, and gender-based stereotypes. Eighty-eight children (43 girls, M_overall?=?58.39 months) completed a measure assessing gender-based occupational stereotypes. This measure, along with gender, was used to predict children’s self-reward for undergoing the testing, as well as their reward for a fictional other child having undergone the same procedure. The methodology provided a novel approach for studying reward allocation in children, as it did not require children to divide resources between themselves and another child for completing the same task. An occupation-based stereotype measure was found to predict the self-reward, as well as the reward allocated to the other child. In addition, the participant’s gender predicted self-reward, and an interaction between participant gender and gender of the experimenter contributed to predicting the other child reward. Overall, these findings suggest that gender and gender-based stereotyping have an impact on reward allocation of young children. Implications of these results in the context of reward allocation research among children and adult populations are discussed.     

Gender Typicality of Faces Affects Children’s Categorization and Judgments of Women More than of Men

Sex Roles - Most infants display more perceptual knowledge of female than male faces, which is related to their predominant experience with women. If disparities in social experience persist beyond...     

Testing the Relationship Between Parents’ and Their Children’s Subjective Well-Being

Casas et al. (J Happiness Stud 9(2):197–205, 2008) found no significant relationship between paired answers given by parents and their 12–16-year-old children (N?=?266) for a single-item scale on overall life satisfaction (OLS). However, a significant, but low (.19) parent–child relationship did appear for the PWI multi-item scale. Overall, children reported higher subjective well being than parents. In this article, we present the results obtained from confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), using more scales and a bigger sample (N?=?1,250) of paired parents and children. The study uses three multiple-item scales: the PWI, the SWLS and the BMSLSS, and six single-item scales: the OLS, two items from Russell’s scale on core affects, one on overall happiness, Fordyce’s happiness item and the optional item of the BMSLSS on overall life satisfaction. Separate CFA for each of the 3 multi-item scales showed good fit statistics. In order to check comparability between parents and children, we tested equal loading and intercept constraints. The models with restricted loadings fit only for the PWI and BMSLSS, but none of the models with restricted intercepts fit. Therefore, it was only possible to estimate two factor correlations for parents and their children, both very low (.16 for the PWI, .18 for BMSLSS), and it was not possible to compare factor means. When correlating scores from the 6 single-item scales for parents and children, they were all found to be significant but very low. As regards items from the multiple-item scales for parents and children many correlations are positive and significant, although very low, but others are non significant. The means of some items were substantially higher for children than for parents. For some items, differences were minor, non-significant or even reversed. All of the results suggest that parents’ well-being is very weakly related to their own children’s well-being, in spite of socialization, common material welfare and genetic influences. However, one outstanding result is that in our Catalan sample, parents’ well-being seems to have a greater influence on their female child’s well-being than on their male child’s.     

Growing Older and Staying Positive: Associations Between Diverse Aging Women’s Perceptions of Age and Body Satisfaction

As women grow older, physical changes accompanying the aging process may impact self-perceptions of body image and age. To assess these perceptions, survey data were collected from 115 European American and 100 African American aging 65+ to assess whether patterns of association between age, age discrepancy, and body satisfaction vary by ethnic group. African American women reported higher average satisfaction for all body perceptions except weight, for which there was no difference between the groups. Ethnic group moderated the association between age discrepancy and two aspects of body satisfaction: cosmetic features and overall appearance. For African American aging women, perceptions of the body were not as strongly linked to perceptions of aging. For European American women, feeling older than one’s age was associated with lower body satisfaction, and women in this group may be more vulnerable to the negative impacts of the aging process on the body.     

The Gender Wage Gap: An Explanation of Men’s Elevated Wage Entitlement

Perceptions of wage entitlement differ between women and men such that men are more likely to feel worthy of higher pay. Based on a combination of status-related theories and evidence from two studies of 120 undergraduate men, we examined men’s reactions to gendered threats to their task abilities. When told that women typically outperform men, men responded with elevated projections of their own competence without reducing their self-pay. These effects were not related to endorsements of masculinity ideology. Instead, exaggerated competence was related to individual men’s heightened legitimate entitlement, and resistant high self-pay was linked to narcissistic entitlement. These patterns demonstrate that what appears to be a gender-based phenomenon is explained more accurately by men’s internalized status beliefs.