A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Political Science suggests that threatening a man’s sense of masculinity might not cause him to adopt more conservative or stereotypically masculine political beliefs. By testing thousands of participants across the United States, researchers found no consistent evidence that making men feel insecure about their gender identity changes their political attitudes.
In both popular culture and politics, many commentators assert that society is experiencing a crisis of masculinity. Some politicians have even made this idea a central part of their campaign platforms, suggesting that traditional men are under attack. Sociologists and psychologists sometimes attribute the growth in far-right extremism and resistance to women’s equality to a concept known as masculinity threat. Masculinity threat is the theory that manhood is a precarious, unstable status that men must constantly earn and defend.
According to this theory, womanhood is often viewed as a natural biological development, while masculine identity is understood to be more fragile. When men feel their gender identity is challenged, they tend to overcompensate by engaging in extreme demonstrations of stereotypical masculinity. This overcompensation can manifest as physical aggression or increased risk-taking. Some scientists suggest it can also influence a person’s social and political viewpoints.
To test this idea, a highly cited 2013 study measured how men reacted when their masculinity was questioned in a laboratory setting. That original study found that men who experienced a gender identity threat tended to express more support for war, homophobia, and dominance over other groups. The authors of that older study reasoned that endorsing conservative views allows men to reaffirm their gender identity.
Because the 2013 paper became highly influential, the scientists behind the new study wanted to see if they could reproduce those original findings. Replicating older studies is an ordinary part of the scientific process, providing evidence regarding whether previous discoveries hold up under different conditions.
“This article is a replication of a highly cited study published in the American Journal of Sociology,” explained study author Claire Gothreau, a postdoctoral researcher at the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences at Dartmouth College. “I’ve always found the idea of ‘masculinity threat’ both fascinating and compelling, but I wondered whether the relationship identified in the original study would hold up in a more representative sample.”
Gothreau, who will join the faculty at Lebanon Valley College as an assistant professor in August 2026, noted the cultural timing of the work. “Given the current cultural conversation around masculinity and the so-called ‘masculinity crisis,’ it felt like an especially important moment to revisit and rigorously test these claims,” she said.
The researchers conducted their new experiment using a nationally representative sample of 2,774 American adults, which included 2,073 men. They specifically oversampled men because the theory of masculinity threat focuses primarily on male reactions and male insecurities. Participants were randomly divided into different groups and asked to complete an online survey. The survey was designed to measure how strongly participants identified with a variety of masculine and feminine personality traits.
After taking the personality survey, participants in the main experimental group received randomly generated, deceptive feedback. Men in this group were falsely told that their scores fell into the feminine range, while women were told their scores were in the masculine range. This false feedback was designed to induce a sense of gender threat. Another group of participants received accurate feedback that simply placed them in the average range for their gender, acting as a control group for baseline comparison.
To improve upon the 2013 research, the scientists added two new experimental conditions to their study. In one group, participants received feedback that was only slightly altered from their real scores. The researchers included this condition to make the threat feel more realistic to people who might doubt a completely fake, extreme result. This helped ensure that participants actually believed the feedback they were reading.
In another group, participants took a popular culture trivia quiz and were told they performed poorly. This general knowledge threat was designed to test an alternative psychological explanation. The researchers wanted to see if people just become more conservative when they feel bad about themselves in general, rather than feeling specifically insecure about their gender.
After receiving their feedback, all participants answered a series of questions about their political and social views. The researchers measured their support for the Iraq War, their views on gay rights, and their desire to purchase a sports utility vehicle. They also measured participants’ preference for traditionalism, which is a desire to stick with known, safe routines rather than trying new things.
The survey also tested participants on their support for system justification and social dominance. System justification is the psychological tendency to defend and rationalize the current social and political system as fair and legitimate. Social dominance is the belief that some groups of people are naturally superior to others and should maintain control over inferior groups.
The scientists also included new questions to reflect modern political debates that were not as prominent in 2013. These updated questions asked participants about their views on transgender rights, legal immigration, and the legalization of marijuana. They also measured whether participants wanted to buy an electric car and if they supported preferential hiring policies to help women overcome past discrimination.
The researchers found no consistent evidence that experiencing a masculinity threat changed men’s political attitudes. “We really went into this being completely ambivalent about what the results would be, so I would say no, nothing surprised me about our results!” Gothreau said.
Men who were told they scored in the feminine range did not show increased support for the Iraq War or homophobia compared to men in the control group. They also did not show a greater desire to buy a sports utility vehicle or endorse more traditionalist beliefs. The alternative experimental conditions also failed to produce the expected changes in political beliefs.
While the study provides evidence that masculinity threat does not easily shift political beliefs, the scientists note a few potential limitations. “The first one is simply that the failed replication could be due to any number of design differences between the original study,” Gothreau explained. “These include things like timing, measurement, sample composition, and other subtle design details.”
She noted that while the team accounted for alternative explanations for the lack of an effect, they could not account for everything. Moving the experiment to an online format with a diverse, national sample might have changed how strongly participants felt the threat. It is possible that being told about a feminine test score face to face has a stronger emotional impact than reading the same feedback on a computer screen.
Gothreau also warned against broad conclusions based solely on this new data. “One potential misinterpretation would be concluding that ‘masculinity threat has no relevance to politics,'” she said. “That would go too far.”
“Other researchers, including Sarah DiMuccio and Eric Knowles, as well as Brian Harrison and Melissa Michelson, have found evidence linking masculinity threat to greater support for policies such as the death penalty, military aggression, and hostility toward transgender people,” Gothreau explained. “At this point, the broader evidence is mixed, which makes this an active and important area for continued research.”
Reflecting on the overall project, Gothreau highlighted two major takeaways for the public. “First, scientific findings do not always replicate, and that’s actually a normal and valuable part of science,” she said. “A failed replication doesn’t necessarily mean the original findings were ‘wrong.'”
Instead, replication studies help refine scientific theories by showing that certain effects might only emerge under specific conditions.
“Second, our findings suggest that we still have a great deal to learn about how masculinity shapes political beliefs and behavior,” Gothreau added. “The relationship appears to be more nuanced and context-dependent than is often assumed.”
Looking ahead, the researchers plan to continue investigating gender and politics from new angles. “I’m currently shifting from studying masculinity threat specifically to exploring how self-perceived masculinity relates to political attitudes, ideological orientations, and political participation more broadly,” Gothreau said.
She plans to focus on a concept she calls the masculinity gap. “I’m especially interested in what I call the ‘masculinity gap,’ the discrepancy between how masculine people see themselves and how masculine they ideally want to be, and whether that gap can help us better understand phenomena like political extremism, grievance politics, and anti-egalitarian attitudes,” she explained.
The researchers noted that conducting this kind of extensive testing requires substantial support. “This research would not have been possible without the grant we received from the Time-sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences grant, which is funded by the National Science Foundation,” Gothreau said. “Access to funding opportunities like these is absolutely critical for early-career researchers like myself, especially for conducting large-scale, high-quality public opinion research.”
The study, “A Replication and Extension of Willer et al. (2013), Overdoing Gender: A Test of the Masculine Overcompensation Thesis,” was authored by Claire Gothreau and Nicholas Haas.
