It's a man's job? An investigation of shifting (masculine) honor expectations for men and women

Abstract

Research on masculine honor beliefs (MHB) has shown that MHB are associated with more positive perceptions of men who respond aggressively to threats and insults, but more negative perceptions of men who ignore threats and insults. Problematically, all previous theoretical research has assumed these expectations do not apply to women and, as such, no previous research has examined perceptions of women who confront an insulting or threatening individual. Across three studies (total N = 1024) we tested our Shifting Honor Expectations (SHE) hypothesis that women would be held to different expectations than men in response to insults and threats. Potentially surprising given the lack of extant literature on the topic, across three studies our results showed that, similarly to men, as a function of participants' MHB, women are perceived more positively when they respond aggressively to threats and insults. However, unlike men, women were generally not perceived more negatively when they chose not to aggress against an insulting stranger. We contend that better understanding the rewards and expectations associated with men and women engaging in aggressive responses to threats and insults (and how these expectations differ), can help explain extreme forms of violence in society and these implications are discussed.