Precarious Manhood Experiment: Vandello And Bosson

The introduction to this experiment goes over the background knowledge and purpose of this entire experiment along with the ideas/theories and hypothesis as well. Starting off with the background knowledge, two scientists named Vandello and Bosson, made the assumption in their research Precarious Manhood that the whole concept of manhood is “hard won and easily lost.” This means that it is easy for the title of “manhood” to be revoked from men and close to impossible to gain it back fully and maintain that title at all times. Vandello and Bosson found out that men mostly react in extreme stereotypical ways (aggression or high stress) when their manhood seems to be at risk or threatened. The primary stereotype men follow is showing their aggressive …show more content…
The main purpose of this experiment was to analyze the effects on men when their manhood was threatened do to the belief that they have to uphold their manhood at all times. The theories/ ideas that were carried along before the experiment was performed were that masculinity can be seen as a relational, contextual, and dynamic process of construction. Upon this there were several hypotheses formed, the first one being: the experiment would follow along the lines of Bosson and Vandello’s experiment where men who seemed threatened would react in an aggressive manner. The second hypothesis was that men would endure a higher level of pain than their competition who seemed unthreatened. The final hypotheses were that men would feel higher levels of gender discrepancy after feeling threatened and that the painful stimuli that was felt during this experiment would make the person feel less threatened if they endured through …show more content…
The men were told their would be an online questionnaire and a lab session that would be split up into two separate occasions. The method used a demographic questionnaire, Masculine gender role discrepancy stress scale (MGRDS), a computerized gender knowledge test, a word completion task, and pain tolerance. The men took a questionnaire which covered the demographic questionnaire and the baseline measure on gender-role discrepancy. After this the group waited one week before furthering their experiment. When the group came back they were sent to a classroom and were randomly assigned to two groups either “Threat” or “Control.” The men in the group threat would be the men who were feeling threatened of their manhood and the men in control would feel unthreatened. The men would go on to take a gender knowledge test that would give them false feedback saying basically that the “Threat” group would know more about feminine topics versus male topics. After this area was finished the group would then take a word-completion test with their answers being based off of how they feel in the moment. Then the group moved onto the pain tolerance test which was performed three