Men and muscularity research: a review

Over the past 25 years, understanding males’ interest in and outcomes of muscularity has developed into a major area of study. Research has been fueled by the development of measures of both the attitudinal and behavioral aspects of a desire to increase muscularity. Our research purpose was to critically assess muscularity research. Using a database search, the ancestry approach, and searching key journals, we identified empirical refereed journal articles with men as participants published from 2000 to 2019 to serve as our data. Our analyses revealed several individual characteristics (e.g., perfectionism, holding to traditional masculine norms) and socio-cultural influences (e.g., media, verbal commentary) that fueled men’s desire to be muscular. In experimental research, exposure to muscular male ideal images has resulted in low body image scores for young men in investigations that utilized pre-test, post-test designs. In survey research, muscularity was positively related to several risky behaviors or behaviors that could become risky if taken to the extreme. Overall, the reviewed research was conducted in western countries and researchers primarily utilized non-probability samples of undergraduate men. Recommendations for future research are provided.

Moaning and Eye Contact: Men’s Use of Ambiguous Signals in Attributions of Consent to Their Partners

In recent years, there has been increasing pressure on men to prevent sexual violence. This study uses data from 25 semi-structured interviews to explore how heterosexual undergraduate men have responded to cultural and organizational pressure to seek consent. Participants answered questions about their recent sexual experiences and attitudes toward campus sexual consent policies. Findings indicate that while participants condone key elements of sexual consent, they do not consistently apply reliable strategies to seek consent. Instead, they use ambiguous social cues that are common in both consensual and nonconsensual sexual interactions, which reinforce the notion that consent is unclear.

Trust your Abilities More than the Stereotype: Effect of Gender-stereotype Threat and Task Difficulty on Word Production, Clustering, and Switching in Letter Fluency

Gender-stereotype threat consistently accounts for underperformance phenomena experienced by women on male-stereotyped cognitive tasks. However, only a few studies have examined how the threat is affecting performance on female-stereotyped cognitive tasks, such as letter fluency. The present study examined whether variations in the cues to activate stereotype threat and the level of task difficulty would affect the letter fluency performance of undergraduate men and women (<em>n</em> = 168) and the underlying cognitive processes of this performance (i.e., switching, clustering). The results indicated participants held beliefs about women&rsquo;s superiority in this task. However, threat-activation cues did not affect production of correct words, errors, clustering, or switching in men and women. Task difficulty affected the number of correct words, yet it did not interact with the stereotype threat-activation cues. Finally, participants&rsquo; actual performance was related to their self-rating perception about their ability instead of the stereotyping they perceived. The effect of self-efficacy, educational level, and individuals&rsquo; susceptibilities should be taken into account when studying the effects of stereotype threat.

Empathy Is Not Enough: The Inhibiting Effects of Rape Myth Acceptance on the Relation Between Empathy and Bystander Intervention

Many bystander training programs aim to build empathy and decrease false and often prejudicial beliefs about rape and its occurrence (i.e., rape myth acceptance) to encourage prosocial bystander intervention. However, little empirical research has examined the association between these constructs. The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of rape myth acceptance on the relation between both (a) the ability to experience and share the emotions of others (i.e., emotional empathy) and (b) the ability to understand the emotions of others (i.e., cognitive empathy), and bystander decision-making and intentions to intervention. In Study 1, 154 undergraduate men completed measures of empathy, rape myth acceptance, and bystander decision-making. Findings demonstrated that emotional empathy was associated with more perceived pros for intervention among men with low, but not high, levels of rape myth acceptance. In Study 2, 185 undergraduate men and 210 undergraduate women completed similar measures as in Study 1, with the addition of a measure on bystander intentions to intervene. Results detected a conditional indirect effect of emotional and cognitive empathy on bystander intentions to intervene via the perception that there are more pros than cons to intervention. Findings suggest that empathic individuals may weigh helping a potential victim (i.e., pro) over hurting their own self-image (i.e., con). However, this process is inhibited among men who endorse greater rape myths, likely because they are inhibited from intervening at various steps of the decision-making model. Collectively, these results highlight the importance of targeting both empathy and rape myth acceptance to encourage prosocial bystander intervention.

Towards a Sociological Understanding of Sexting as a Social Practice: A Case Study of University Undergraduate Men

This article makes the case for understanding young people’s engagement with ‘sexting’ as a social practice. Moving away from the dominant focus on teenagers and (sexual) risk and instead approaching sexting as an ‘everyday’ practice sheds light on how sexting is perceived and situated as a normalised part of contemporary youth culture. Drawing on 10 focus groups with 37 undergraduate men in Melbourne, Australia, our data reveal young men’s significant emphasis on consent, mutuality and respect, marking out ‘appropriate sexting’ practices as distinct from harassment or image-based abuse. Nonetheless, the centrality of a transactional approach to sexting questions those seemingly positive dispositions. Social practice theory permits sophisticated understanding of these nuances, seeing them as bound up and produced in correspondence with the broader meanings, embodied skills and material artefacts that are associated with sexting.