RESEARCH_FILE
Joseph A. Vandello
University of South Florida
Known for:Co-developer of precarious manhood theory — the finding that manhood functions as a culturally contingent status requiring active, public demonstration and susceptible to social challenge
SEE THE PRACTICE
Turn a thought this research explains into one clear move.
THE THOUGHT
“If I stop, everything falls apart”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“Rest is maintenance, not a prize.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Choose one small, harmless task you would usually finish automatically—leave a folded item on the chair, pause a load of laundry mid-cycle, or let a notebook stay open. Set a 10-minute timer and do nothing to correct it.
Key findings
- 2013
With Jennifer Bosson, Vandello synthesized a decade of cross-cultural anthropological evidence and experimental laboratory findings to show that manhood — unlike womanhood — is cross-culturally treated as a status that is hard won, easily lost, and requires repeated public proof, with threatened men responding via heightened risk-taking and aggression. Hard Won and Easily Lost: A Review and Synthesis of Theory and Research on Precarious Manhood ↗