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RESEARCHERS

The Science of Precarious Manhood: Why the 'Man Up' Script Never Ends

3 the researchers behind it — "Man up" feels like a description of who you are. The research says it's really a demand about what you have to keep doing. Since the early 2000s a bo

University of South Florida

Joseph A. Vandello

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

Key findings

  1. 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. ↗

University of South Florida

Jennifer K. Bosson

Known for:Co-developer of precarious manhood theory and lead researcher on the experimental paradigm showing that lab-induced threats to manhood status produce measurable behavioral prove-it responses in men

Key findings

  1. 2013

    With Joseph Vandello, Bosson published the comprehensive review of precarious manhood research, documenting that across cultures, the prove-it structure of manhood — combined with limited legitimate low-cost proof options — creates a perpetual performance demand with measurable psychological and behavioral costs. ↗

University of British Columbia

Jennifer L. Berdahl

Known for:Author of 'Work as a Masculinity Contest' — the framework identifying the four contest-culture norms that predict harm for men, women, and organizations, and the researcher establishing that contest-culture environments produce worse, not better, organizational performance

Key findings

  1. 2018

    Berdahl and colleagues identified four specific masculinity contest culture norms — show no weakness, strength and stamina, dog-eat-dog competition, and put work first — and demonstrated that each independently predicted worse job satisfaction, higher burnout, and worse organizational health for men and women alike. ↗

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