“Stand up for yourself!” Masculine honor beliefs and expectations for bullied youth

Abstract

Masculine honor beliefs dictate that men should build a tough reputation by confronting threats and insults. This ideology has primarily been applied to adults, understanding why men exhibit violence in society. However, recent research suggests that these beliefs may influence how children are expected to respond to bullies which we contend may help to explain children's internalization of aggression and the prevalence of extreme retaliatory violence in schools (e.g., school shootings). Across four studies we showed that, while adults higher in masculine honor beliefs do not necessarily endorse extreme forms of violence in response to bullying, those higher in masculine honor ideologies reported greater endorsement of aggressive confrontations of bullies, more positive perceptions of children who respond aggressively to bullies, backlash boys who do not respond aggressively to bullies, and (surprisingly) report more positive perceptions of bullying behavior. These results suggest that adults higher in masculine honor beliefs may inspire greater bullying behavior and aggression in bullied children.