The Roots and Fruits of Masculinity: Social Antecedents and Sexual Relationship Consequences of Young Men’s Adherence to Masculine Norms

ABSTRACT

On a longitudinal sample of 181 emerging adult men (M_age = 19.36, SD_age = 1.48), we analyzed how diverse socializing agents (fathers, male peers, magazines, music videos, TV dramas, and TV sitcoms) related to adherence to masculine norms, and how norm adherence related to men’s interpersonal sexual cognitions and behaviors (romantic relationship self-efficacy, sexual self-esteem, and alcohol-primed sexual encounters). We found that male peers, magazines, and music videos related to masculine norm adherence one year later, and that norm adherence predicted increased alcohol-primed sexual encounters. We followed this up with analyses investigating the role of specific masculine norms and found unique socialization and outcome paths for different masculine norms. For example, analyses indicated that male peers were positively related to norms of winning, power over women, playboy attitudes, and risk-taking, and that playboy attitudes, risk-taking, emotional control, and self-reliance predicted lower levels of romantic relationship self-efficacy. Interestingly, sitcom viewing related to lower adherence to masculine norms including heterosexual presentation and having power over women. Findings identify the unique influence of male peers, magazines, and music videos on young men’s sexual cognitions and behaviors and highlight how combining different socialization agents in one model is key to identifying these unique patterns of socialization and their consequences.

KEYWORDS:

• fathers
• gender identity
• gender stereotypes
• longitudinal
• media
• peers

Acknowledgements

Matthew G. Nielson: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft.

L. Monique Ward: Project administration, Supervision, Writing - review & editing.

Rita Seabrook: Data collection, Data curation, Writing - review & editing.

Soraya Giaccardi: Data collection, Data curation, Writing - review & editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.