This preliminary study focused on the cultural dimension of masculinity/femininity. Unlike many cultural studies that have utilized previously published country-level scores for dimensions of culture, this study surveyed individuals from thirty-four different countries to determine their score on the masculinity/femininity continuum. These results were part of a research model containing cultur...

This paper draws on doctoral research that explores boys’ understandings of masculinity. It reports on a doctoral study conducted in an all boys’ Australian, secondary college with almost 300 Year 12 students. This paper presents boys’ descriptions of the qualities they consider make for masculinity and the processes involved in becoming masculine. It highlights the dichotomy experienced by som...

Body size and other signs of physical prowess are associated with leadership hierarchies in many social species. Here we (1) assess whether facial cues associated with perceived height and masculinity have different effects on leadership judgments in simulated wartime and peacetime contexts and (2) test how facial cues associated with perceived height and masculinity influence dominance percept...

Six areas of research in developmental and personafity psychology concerning sex-typed traits, attitudes, and interests are identified as elements o f a common "masculinity-femininity" paradigm needing reexamination. The masculinityfemininity paradigm is defined in relationship to Money and Ehrhardt's model for gender identity differentiation and dimorphism. The six lines o f research in the ma...

This article presents a new scale to measure adolescent boys’ internalization of masculine norms as evidenced by their attitudes and beliefs about what constitutes appropriate behavior for males within interpersonal relationships. Framing masculinity ideology within a relational paradigm, the theoretical foundations of the Adolescent Masculinity Ideology in Relationships Scale (AMIRS) emphasize...

Men's voices contain acoustic cues to body size and hormonal status, which have been found to affect women's ratings of speaker size, masculinity and attractiveness. However, the extent to which these voice parameters mediate the relationship between speakers' fitness-related features and listener's judgments of their masculinity has not yet been investigated. We audio-recorded 37 adult heteros...

This paper argues that men’s Halloween costumes do not offer insight on versions of hegemonic and non-hegemonic masculine performativity as much as Halloween costumes tell us about the colonization of masculinity by commercial interests, thus creating yet another version of branded masculinity. The data, from a content analysis of 100 images of men’s Halloween costumes, demonstrates the conside...

According to the 'good genes' hypothesis, females choose males based on traits that indicate the male's genetic quality in terms of disease resistance. The 'immunocompetence handicap hypothesis' proposed that secondary sexual traits serve as indicators of male genetic quality, because they indicate that males can contend with the immunosuppressive effects of testosterone. Masculinity is commonl...

It has been hypothesised that facial traits such as masculinity and a healthy appearance may indicate heritable qualities in males (e.g. immunocompetence) and that, consequently, female preferences for such traits may function to increase offspring viability and health. However, the putative link between paternal facial features and offspring health has not previously been tested empirically in...

Parallel bodies of research have described the diverse and complex ways that men understand and construct their masculine identities (often termed "masculinities") and, separately, how adherence to traditional notions of masculinity places men at risk for negative sexual and health outcomes. The goal of this analysis was to bring together these two streams of inquiry. Using data from a national...