Ongoing third-party funded projects

Overview

Masculinity threat: Scope, processes, and interventions
Longitudinal analyses of men’s communal engagement during the transition to fatherhood: The roles of gender-related beliefs and social support
Underestimating Sexism: Generality, Analysis, Scale Validations, and Intersections
Online-Diversity-Training for Students at the RPTU
Emmy Noether Research Group on Ostracism Decisions

Masculinity threat: Scope, processes, and interventions

Team: Melanie Steffens, Lea Lorenz & Helena Wesnitzer

If people belong to a social group that is important to them, a well-established finding in research is social-identity threat: Threat to group-based self-worth. Two main reasons for such threat are that an individual does not appear (proto-)typical of the social group in question in important ways or that one’s group does not appear positive compared to other social groups (it is not “positively distinct”). Particularly striking findings have emerged regarding masculinity threat in men. A multitude of different triggers have been found to lead to masculinity threats, and a large range of compensatory reactions have been observed, many of them implying negative consequences for individual men, their social environments, or societies at large.

The overarching aim of the present project is to propose and test a process model of masculinity threat. Our first sub-aim is to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the existing experimental research on masculinity threat. We will investigate, among others, (a) whether some triggers lead to stronger compensatory reactions than others, (b) whether compensatory reactions that match the type of threat lead to stronger reactions, and (c) which individual and situational variables moderate the effect size.

Our second aim is to investigate (a) whether after a compensatory reaction, masculinity is restored, or whether masculinity-related self-aspects are activated and lead to further similar reactions; (b) whether harmful compensatory reactions can be substituted by non-harmful ones. Using ambulatory assessment will additionally inform us about the frequency with which men experience masculinity threats in daily life, their (possibly overlooked) triggers, and real-life reactions. Correspondingly, we will test whether masculinity threat is just a sexy experimental phenomenon or a daily experience of men including real-world costs for themselves and others.

Whereas both the meta-analysis and the ambulatory-assessment studies will inform the process model of masculinity threat, our third aim is to experimentally test the suggested processes systematically. At the same time, we will investigate the effectiveness of different interventions to prevent masculinity-threat reactions. In three series of experiments, we test whether harmful compensatory reactions can be prevented in straightforward ways: (a) by non-harmful compensatory reactions, (b) by teaching about masculinity threat, and (c) by a preceding self-affirmation exercise. The project is planned as a cooperation with Jennifer Bosson, University of South Florida, USA, who is one of the leading experts on masculinity threat, and with Ece Acka, Ege University, Turkey, who will test non-WEIRD samples and thus cultural boundary conditions of findings. Tanja Lischetzke, University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, will cooperate on the ambulatory-assessment studies.

Longitudinal analyses of men’s communal engagement during the transition to fatherhood: The roles of gender-related beliefs and social support

Team: Melanie Steffens, Elena Gehringer & Colette Van Laar, Leuven

Men are underrepresented in communal domains traditionally associated with women and therefore counter-stereotypic for men. Various barriers have been identified that hinder men’s higher participation. The present research proposal is part of a larger program of research in which we explored predictors of men’s communal engagement using the example of how men’s interest in parental leave – as a form of communal engagement – varies across different stages of the transition to fatherhood. Specifically, we focused on how gendered beliefs regarding masculinity and fatherhood, the possible selves men can imagine for their future, and the social support men receive from their normative environment relate to their intentions to take parental leave specifically and to their engagement in care more broadly. The funding we apply for here is needed for finalizing data analyses.

The following parts of the project have been carried out as a dissertation. We started an extended longitudinal study investigating the parental leave-taking intentions of expectant fathers in Belgium and Germany. Cross-sectional analyses of Wave 1 (before birth) have been carried out, where we found first evidence for a link between male prototypes and men’s behavioral preferences to take parental leave after birth. Yet, the support that expectant fathers received from their partners for taking parental leave emerged as the strongest predictor of men’s leave-taking desire, intention, and expected duration. In first longitudinal analyses comparing Wave 1 and 2 data (about 4 months after birth), we studied discrepancies between men’s prenatal plans to fulfill caregiver and breadwinner roles and their actual postnatal engagement in each domain. Results suggested that fathers, on average, expected and desired to share childcare and breadwinning rather equally with their partners but had difficulties translating their intentions into behavior.

Wave 3 data collection is currently ongoing and could be used for further examining parental engagement during the first year after birth. Further, a partner questionnaire was included in the study, and data could be matched for examining additional research questions and dis-ambiguating interpretations (e.g., father’s perceptions of vs. partner’s actually indicated support).

The aims of the present research proposal are to do longitudinal data analyses including data of all three waves, focusing on the following research questions: (1) How do the main constructs we measured change across the three time points? (2) What are reciprocal relations and mediations between constructs across waves? (3) What are the most powerful predictors of men’s actual leave-taking? Taken together, these analyses will allow important conclusions regarding barriers and facilitators for men’s engagement in communal roles.

Underestimating Sexism: Generality, Analysis, Scale Validations, and Intersections

Team: Melanie Steffens & Franziska Ehrke

Laws such as the AGG forbid discrimination. In line with this law, many people are motivated to respond without prejudice. Still, inequality is pervasive. Shedding further light on the roots of discrimination could help diminish it. Gender, age, and race/ethnicity are theorized to play major roles as social categories giving rise to discrimination (i.e., sexism, ageism, and racism). A defining feature of modern -isms is people’s belief that discrimination is a thing of the past. Conversely, we posit that awareness of continuing discrimination is critical for combatting discrimination, and that, in addition to general evaluations (“modern -isms”), recognizing concrete instances of discrimination is a crucial ability for the ultimate aim of reducing discrimination.

The research proposed here targets the underestimation of sexism, compared to other forms of discrimination (as reference categories). In preliminary work preparing this project (5 experiments, 3 of them preregistered, plus 3 pre-registered validations of the scale’s racism version), we developed a scenario scale that uses the same situations (e.g., excluding co-workers of one social category from an informal meeting) in a sexism versus racism version (counterbalanced across participants; e.g., excluding female vs. Black co-workers). We consistently found that on average, sexism scenarios were judged as less discriminatory than racism scenarios. The racism-sexism difference was related more to other sexism than racism-related constructs.

Building on these findings, the present research tests against each other several theoretical explanations, aiming to shed light on the question why sexism (or -isms in general) might be underestimated. We test the generality and analyze the underestimation of sexism; validate the sexism as well as a cissexism scenario scale; and investigate identity intersections. Concretely, we investigate the research questions: (1) How consistent is the underestimation of sexism (a) across different cultures, (b) across the different scenarios the scale consists of, and (c) compared with other reference categories (e.g., ageism)? In addition, (2) we validate the scenario scale for assessing awareness of gender-related discrimination (i.e., sexism and cissexism), which will also lead to a deeper understanding of the underestimation of (cis)sexism by yielding which scenarios are considered subtle manifestations of (cis)sexism. Additionally, (3) we will thoroughly investigate the racism-sexism intersection (i.e., regarding Black women’s discrimination). Taken together, this research will extend theoretical models of discrimination bases and provide a modern, valid scenario-based measurement instrument allowing to measure awareness of (cis)sexist discrimination.