The surprising support of minority voters forUS political candidates working against their interests has raised questions about cultural and psychological factors behind this trend. Prior research has found masculinity threat to affect antisocial attitudes. We investigated the effects of masculinity threat on US minority political attitudes and behavior.
Online survey data were collected via paid research panel. Participants (N=764) were male USA residents (N=764) from four backgrounds: Black, Hispanic, Asian, and White.
Masculinity threat manipulations included candidate threat (CT): information about a former US president (Trump or Biden) being dominated by an effete or female world leader; and Information threat (IT): information about the greater relative effectiveness of women as political leaders. A subset (N=370) of men with high masculinity threat potential (high MTP) was also identified from scales tapping precarious manhood, hegemonic masculinity, and hostile sexism.
Outcomes included political risk-taking, judgments of president effectiveness, beliefs about female leaders, and feelings toward American politicians and parties.
Effects of high MTP, CT, IT, racial resentment, and partisanship on outcomes varied notably across race/ethnicity groups, with Black and Asian participants showing unique effects. These results inform understanding of support for right-wing populists among nonwhite minorities in the USA.
