Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

A** Kicking and Care Taking: Masculine Honor Beliefs and Individuals’ Priorities in Socializing Children

Masculine honor ideology contends that aggression is sometimes appropriate, justifiable, and even necessary, especially when used in the protection of others. What has yet to be studied is how masculine honor beliefs are taught to individuals. Accordingly, we created a program of research to examine how masculine honor beliefs relate to the way individuals want to socialize their children. We expect that higher levels of masculine honor beliefs will be related to individuals’ (especially men’s) perceiving it as important to socialize sons to defend and protect themselves from threat (i.e., ass kickers). Further, whereas we expect men higher in masculine honor beliefs to take the primary role in socializing their sons in defending and protecting themselves from threat, we also expect men higher in masculine honor beliefs to expect their female partner to take on the primary role of socializing children in all other areas, especially when it comes to teaching daughters to take care of others (i.e., caretakers) and to “act like a lady.” To test these hypotheses, participants responded to various free-response items concerning how they would like to raise their (future) children. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found evidence for our prediction that men higher in masculine honor beliefs tend to expect their (future) female partner to take the primary role of socializing children, but especially daughters. Our data also suggest gender differences in the way individuals higher in adherence to masculine honor beliefs prefer to socialize children such that those higher in adherence to masculine honor beliefs prefer to teach sons how to protect others, but prefer to teach daughters how to care for others. This study extends the extant literature on masculine honor beliefs and helps us better understand how masculine honor beliefs are passed down to future generations. A follow up study investigating participants’ intentions to teach children specific skills, behaviors, or characteristics related to masculine honor is currently underway. In sum, this program of research will provide further insight into the transmission of masculine honor beliefs, and the extent to which children are likely to be socialized to be ass kickers or caretakers.