Sadistic masculinity: Masculine honor ideology mediates sadism and aggression

Abstract

Masculine honor ideology (MHI) is the belief that men must respond aggressively to perceived threats or insults to be considered masculine and respectable (Barnes et al., 2012), but its role in aggression has not garnered much empirical attention. Sadism, the enjoyment of other people's suffering and pain, and its relationship with violence has been well established; however, sadism research has focused primarily on more egregious outcomes such as sexual violence and other extreme criminal behaviors. The concept of everyday sadism captures the more typically acceptable enjoyment of suffering and pain that falls below the clinical threshold (Buckels et al., 2013; Paulhus & Dutton, 2016). The present study aimed to address the dearth of research exploring MHI, aggression, and everyday sadism. A sample of 740 adult men living in the United States was recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). It was hypothesized MHI would be a direct predictor of aggression in a structural equation model (SEM), and it would mediate the relationship between everyday sadism and aggression. This hypothesis was largely supported, and these findings have important implications for clinical practice as well as aggression intervention and prevention efforts.