Guardians: masculine honour beliefs and perceptions of men’s roles in preventing sexual violence

ABSTRACT

Across two studies, we examined how individual differences in masculine honour beliefs (MHB) related to perceptions of men’s responsibilities in preventing sexual assaults committed against women. Higher levels of MHB were associated with greater perceptions that a male bystander either witnessing a male perpetrator initiate sexually pressuring behaviours (Study 1), or sexual assault (Study 2), should physically intervene. Higher levels of MHB were also associated with greater perceptions that a male bystander should be held responsible for the sexual assault if he failed to prevent it from occurring (Studies 1 and 2). Our research extends the theoretical framework of masculine honour ideology by demonstrating that masculine honour beliefs may inspire both prosocial (e.g. bystander intervention) and antisocial (e.g. vigilantism on behalf of women) in preventing sexual violence against women.

PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT

Practically, this research suggests adherence to masculine honour ideology may manifest in bystander intervention to prevent sexual violence against women. That is, individuals with higher levels of masculine honour beliefs may be more likely to physically intervene as a bystander in situations where women are at risk of being sexually assaulted. This research may inform institutions (e.g. colleges, universities) on how to utilise honour-based messages to highlight men’s roles in the prevention of sexual violence. Future research should continue to examine how masculine honour ideology may inspire expectations for behaviour in preventing other forms of violence in our society, such as intimate partner violence.

KEYWORDS:

• Masculine honour beliefs
• honour ideology
• sexual violence
• rape
• bystander intervention
• prevention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

1 The relationships between MHBS and other measures (both individual difference measures and outcome measures) in Study 1 held for both men and women. These data are available upon request.

2 We ran simultaneous multiple regressions to confirm the unique effects of MHB on perceptions of men’s roles in preventing sexual assault. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found significant main effects of MHB on ratings that the bystander should physically attack the man (B = .49, t = 3.38, p < .001), that the male bystander should be enraged and insulted by the assault (B = .36, t = 2.70, p = .008), and that the male bystander was obligated to prevent the assault from occurring (B = .27, t = 2.76, p = .006), while controlling for other measures. We did not test interactions because we did not predict interactions.

3 The relationships between MHBS and other measures (both individual difference measures and outcome measures) in Study 2 held for both men and women. These data are available upon request.

4 We ran simultaneous multiple regressions to confirm the unique effects of MHB on perceptions of men’s roles in preventing sexual assault. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found a significant main effect of MHB on ratings that the bystander should physically attack the man (B = .58, t = 2.21, p = .029), while controlling for other measures. We did not test interactions because we did not predict interactions.