Do women favour women more than men favour men?
This is the sixth blog in the series The 12 blogs of Christmas based on the Psychreg Journal of Psychology (PJP) special issue on male psychology
Today’s blog is one of the most creative of the PJP special issue. PhD candidate Nathan Hook conducted an experiment involving a hypertext game based on a fictional story about Arthurian knight on a mythical quest. Almost 400 participants took part and found that women identified less strongly with the male character in the story than men did, although male participants identified more equally with a female character. The impact of gender was much stronger than any impact of the participants religion, which might have had an impact, given that the character was an Arthurian knight.
This finding is somewhat similar to a previous study by Nathan Hook, and suggests that men tend not to favour other men as much as women favour other women. This runs counter to the widely held general principles of group processes predicted by Social Identity Theory, and has implications for social policy.
Tomorrow’s blog is on a related topic, and reveals the situations in which men are expected to take more responsibility for their problems than are women, and vice versa.
In case your holiday season is less than happy, here are some places you can contact for support:
Samaritans lines are open 24/7 (365 days) Tel 116 123 (UK & Ireland)
CALM helpline is open 365 days 5pm - midnight. Tel 0800 58 58 58. Or try the CALM webchat https://www.thecalmzone.net/help/get-help/
If you are a father experiencing a stressful time post-separation, you can call the Families Need Fathers helpline 0300 0330 363 (9am - 10pm Monday to Friday, 10am - 3pm at weekends).
If you are a man experiencing domestic abuse, you can call the Mankind Initiative helpline weekdays 10am to 4pm on 01823 334244
