The Military Hypermasculine Mystique: Sex, Status, and Emotional Control at the United States Military Academy

• Published in: Psychology of men & masculinity 2021-10, Vol.22 (4), p.611-626
• Main Authors: Schaefer, Hillary S., Cotting, Dave I., Proctor, Eliot S., Ryan, Diane M., Lerner, Richard M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic staff; Armed forces; Attitudes; Conformity; Conformity (Personality); Desire; Diversity Training; Emotional Control; Emotions; Higher Education; Hostility; Human; Leadership; Machiavellianism; Male; Masculinity; Men; Military Personnel; Military Schools; Moral education; Sexism; Social environment; Social Norms; Tolerance; Violence; Women
• ISSN: 1524-9220; 1939-151X
• DOI: 10.1037/men0000365

Although hostile expressions of masculinity have robust negative impacts in multiple domains among civilian populations, in the military, masculinity is a rarer target of inquiry and remains a polarizing subject. This article examines hostile and hypermasculine attitudes that prior work suggests may be associated with negative consequences for the social environment and men themselves in a U.S. military educational environment (N = 1,560 freshmen and 499 graduating senior men). Multivariate moderated multiple regressions (MMMR) linked military hypermasculinity facets (Machiavellian desire for status and control; conformity to masculine norms including emotional control, violence tolerance, needing to win, and impersonal sex preference; hostile and benevolent sexism) to performance outcomes including academics, leadership, and fitness; perceptions of peers, leadership, and antibias programming; and behavior. Desire for status, impersonal sex preference, violence tolerance, and benevolent sexism predicted negative performance outcomes. Violence tolerance, emotional control, and hostile sexism were associated with poorer perception of character education and/or anti-bias programming. Needing to win and control were associated with positive performance outcomes. Healthy messaging surrounding emotions, sex, and perception of women may help assuage toxic expressions of masculinity in the military. Contextualized demonstration of the counterproductive aspects of military hypermasculinity might sidestep opposition to altering hegemonic norms. Public Significance Statement Our results and the work of others show that hostile masculinities result in poor outcomes for men holding these beliefs and for the social environment generally. In our sample, poor outcomes for hypermasculine military attitudes included lower connection to peers, poorer grades and leadership, and rejection of diversity training efforts. Our findings suggest that healthy messaging surrounding sex and display of emotions are especially important to counteract problems associated with hypermasculine military culture.