What Do You Think About Change? The Influence of RMC Students’ Conformity to Masculine Norms and Social Dominance Orientation on Embracing Culture Change in the Canadian Armed Forces

Abstract

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has recently committed to improving its organizational culture after several sexual misconduct allegations were made against its senior leaders (Government of Canada, 2021). Currently, the general goal of cultural reform has been frequently mentioned and used as a notion to inspire CAF members to look forward to the prospective transformations that will come about (Eyre, 2021). On the contrary, research in this area suggests that the military’s institutionalization of uncompromising masculine standards may be an obstacle in the way of true ‘culture change’ (Pendlebury, 2020; Richard & Molloy, 2020). This study evaluated whether service members’ openness to the culture change in the CAF is hindered by their personal endorsement of masculine norms and a dominant social worldview. Military students (n = 145) at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) took part in this research by completing measures of Social Dominance Orientation, Masculinity, and Attitudes towards the CAF culture change. The results of an indirect effects analysis indicated that higher conformity to masculine norms was associated with less acceptance toward the CAF’s movement towards culture reform, which was explained by one’s preference for out-group superiority and inequality. These findings suggest that achieving culture change is not only a matter of ending sexual misconduct, but perhaps more importantly, involves challenging the implicit attitudes of hyper-masculinity and social dominance in the Canadian military.
 Keywords: masculine conformity, hegemonic masculinity, masculine norms, social dominance orientation, culture change, military, Canadian Armed Forces