Abstract
This study tested whether differences in cultural beliefs about manhood can explain the large cultural variability in attitudes and social policies regarding sexual and gender minorities. If people believe manhood is an easily threatened, precarious social status (Vandello et al., 2008), then LGBTQ + groups may be targets of derogation as symbolic threats to masculinity and men’s distinctiveness. In a large pre-registered cross-cultural study of 62 countries, we tested whether country-level precarious manhood beliefs were associated with more negative attitudes, fewer rights, more restrictive laws, and less safety toward LGBTQ + groups. Hypotheses were largely supported, and these negative relationships generally held when controlling for religiosity, cultural tightness, traditional and security-related values, gender inequality, and sexism. Results suggest that the fates of societies’ most vulnerable gender and sexuality groups are related to societies’ beliefs about manhood.
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Data Availability
The study described in this paper was pre-registered at OSF: https://osf.io/m5t3a/?view_only=6cb625b17d8b4300aafdd8360cb676e1.
All original data are reported in the manuscript (Table 1).
Notes
We use the term LGBTQ + as an umbrella term to refer to various sexual and gender minorities. There is currently no consensus about which term (LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQI, LGBTQIA+) best captures these groups.
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This research was funded by a grant from the National Science Centre in Poland (grant number: 2017/26/M/HS6/00360) awarded to Natasza Kosakowska-Berezecka.
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Joseph Vandello led the writing and analyses.All authors contributed to the data collection, analysis, writing, and editing of the manuscript.
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This study finds that cross-national differences in endorsement of the belief that manhood is a precarious status is associated with negative attitudes and outcomes for LGBTQ + populations. Combatting prejudice toward gender and sexual minorities may require confronting how cultures view manhood.
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Vandello, J.A., Upton, R.A., Wilkerson, M. et al. Cultural Beliefs About Manhood Predict Anti-LGBTQ+ Attitudes and Policies. Sex Roles 88, 442–458 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-023-01365-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-023-01365-x