#MeToo, #MenToo: how men's progressive and reactionary actions are shaped by defensiveness

Barron, Anna C.; Thomas, Emma F.; Woodyatt, Lydia

doi:10.3389/frsps.2024.1356998

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Soc. Psychol., 26 June 2024

Sec. Attitudes, Social Justice and Political Psychology

Volume 2 - 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frsps.2024.1356998

This article is part of the Research Topic The Political Psychology of Social Change View all 7 articles

#MeToo, #MenToo: how men's progressive and reactionary actions are shaped by defensiveness

$\r\nAnna C. Barron$ Anna C. Barron¹^*

Emma F. Thomas²

Lydia Woodyatt²

¹Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
²Department of Psychology, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Movements for progressive social change (e.g., Black Lives Matter, #MeToo) are commonly met with reactionary counter-movements that seek to protect the rights and interests of structurally advantaged groups (e.g., All Lives Matter, #MenToo). Drawing on the insights of the social identity approach and the needs-based model of reconciliation, the current research explores whether men's support for progressive and reactionary action (i.e., their intentions to promote women's rights and men's rights, respectively) are shaped by their need to defend their group's moral identity. Combined analyses of three samples (N = 733) showed that men's social identification was associated with their reduced intentions to act for women's rights and positively related to their intentions to promote men's rights—effects mediated by their need for positive moral identity and defensiveness regarding the issue of gendered violence. Overall, the findings suggest that defensive construals regarding group-based inequalities may not only present a barrier to men's engagement in collective action for gender equality, but might also underlie their participation in reactionary actions designed to advance the rights of their own (advantaged) group.

Introduction

In recent years, movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter have highlighted the pervasive nature of racial and gendered violence and led to increased societal discussions regarding ongoing discrimination against women and ethnic minorities. Notably, these movements have called on members of structurally advantaged groups (i.e., men, White people) to acknowledge their group's power, privilege, and history of perpetrating harm against members of the disadvantaged group. For example, the #MeToo movement drew attention to the over representation of men among perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault. Similarly, Black Lives Matter continues to demand that the state acknowledge and address institutionalized racism and violence against Black people and ethnic minority groups.

The reactions of advantaged group members to movements advocating for social change are varied (Radke et al., 2020; see also Kutlaca et al., 2020; Shuman et al., 2024). While some choose to stand in solidarity with the disadvantaged group to challenge injustice (e.g., men who tweeted “#HowIWillChange” in reaction to women's disclosures of sexual violence; PettyJohn et al., 2019), others respond with backlash and resistance (e.g., men who claim that the #MeToo movement discriminates against their group; de Maricourt and Burrell, 2022; Lisnek et al., 2022). Indeed, both #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter triggered reactionary counter-movements (#MenToo, #AllLivesMatter) that sought to advocate for the rights of the advantaged group (Becker, 2020; Boyle and Rathnayake, 2020; Choma et al., 2020; West et al., 2021; Thomas and Osborne, 2022). The interactions between these movements (based on, respectively, support for, and opposition to, the rights of disadvantaged and advantaged group members) are an example of what Thomas and Osborne (2022) term the dialectical nature of collective action.

In the current paper, we explore the processes underlying men's support for progressive vs. reactionary forms of collective action. That is, we examine men's intentions to support women's rights, and their intentions to engage in actions designed to promote the rights of their own—advantaged—group (Becker, 2020; Thomas and Osborne, 2022). Drawing on insights from social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) and the needs-based model of reconciliation (Shnabel and Nadler, 2008), we propose that men's support for collective actions designed to promote women's and men's rights, respectively, may be shaped, in part, by their distinct identity-based needs as members of a structurally advantaged group (i.e., their social identification as members of a group held responsible for perpetrating harm).

Extending work on the relationship between moral image concerns and advantaged group members' support for the disadvantaged groups' action (see Kende et al., 2020; Teixeira et al., 2020), we propose that men's need to defend their group's morality may not only undermine their intentions to support the movement to end gender-based violence—but, that it may also motivate their engagement in reactionary actions designed to promote the rights of their own group. In doing so, our approach brings together work on defensive reactions to reminders of ingroup harmdoing (Doosje et al., 1998; Leidner et al., 2010; Bilali et al., 2012; Sullivan et al., 2012; Leach et al., 2013; Rotella and Richeson, 2013; Bilali and Vollhardt, 2019) with the collective action literature (see Thomas et al., 2022, for an overview) to understand how advantaged group members respond to movements advocating for justice and equality for disadvantaged groups.

What underlies advantaged group members' support for progressive and reactionary action: the role of group-based threats to moral identity

Social psychological research on advantaged group members' support and opposition to social change has focused predominantly on how the increasing rights of disadvantaged group members can lead members of the advantaged group to feel that their position in the status hierarchy is under threat (Craig and Richeson, 2014, 2018; Dover et al., 2016; Shepherd et al., 2018; Reicher and Ulusahin, 2020; Brown et al., 2022; Domen et al., 2022; Rivera-Rodriguez et al., 2022). Advantaged group members' perception that they are competing with the disadvantaged group for power and resources has been associated with their reduced support for progressive policies designed to protect minority group members from prejudice and discrimination (Leach et al., 2007; Norton and Sommers, 2011; Craig and Richeson, 2014). In a similar vein, research has linked conservative ideologies such as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) with advantaged group members' opposition to system-challenging action (e.g., Black Lives Matter), and their engagement in system-supporting action (e.g., White nationalist movements that seek to protect “White power”; Choma et al., 2020; Selvanathan et al., 2020; Holt et al., 2022).

However, movements for progressive social change are not only concerned with the disadvantaged group's access to rights and resources. Protest from disadvantaged groups also highlight the unearned privileges and immoral actions of the advantaged group (Kende et al., 2020; Teixeira et al., 2020; Okuyan and Vollhardt, 2022; Shuman et al., 2024). For example, commentary surrounding the #MeToo movement notes that while #MeToo was instrumental in emphasizing the need for structural, legislative change to prevent violence against women, it also brought into sharp relief men's over representation as the perpetrators of sexual violence (Hill, 2021; de Maricourt and Burrell, 2022; Lisnek et al., 2022). Hill (2021) describes how, as #MeToo gained traction online in 2017, it increasingly became an “accountability” movement concerned with promoting justice for victims and retribution for male perpetrators (p. 10). In this way, movements like #MeToo not only challenge existing power relations between men and women, but also call into question men's moral character.

Members of historically advantaged groups are particularly sensitive to information that suggests that their group has acted immorally (Doosje et al., 1998; Sullivan et al., 2012; Knowles et al., 2014; Bilali and Vollhardt, 2019; Kahalon et al., 2019). According to the needs-based model of reconciliation (Shnabel and Nadler, 2008; Aydin et al., 2019), disadvantaged group members—who are often the victims of discrimination—can experience a threat to their need for power and agency. Conversely, advantaged group members—who are often accused of being prejudiced against the disadvantaged group—experience a heightened need for morality and acceptance (Shnabel et al., 2009; Nadler and Shnabel, 2015). This need is particularly heightened for members of the advantaged group who are strongly attached to their ingroup (that is, those who view their social identification in a particular group as central to their self-concept; Branscombe et al., 1999).

Drawing on the framework provided by the needs-based model, research has shown that advantaged group members' support for social movements designed to promote the rights of the disadvantaged group is influenced by their perception that their group's moral image is under attack (see Shnabel et al., 2013; Kahalon et al., 2019; Kende et al., 2020; Teixeira et al., 2020). For example, Kende et al. (2020) found that men's need to defend their group's moral reputation was associated with their reduced support for the #MeToo campaign. Similarly, Teixeira et al. (2020) showed that advantaged group member's support for the disadvantaged group's protest decreased as a function of people's concerns about their group's moral image.

However, to date, research on support for (and opposition to) progressive social change has tended to focus on how morality concerns may undermine advantaged group members' support for the disadvantaged group's protest, without considering how morality needs might also mobilize advantaged group members to advocate for the rights of their own (privileged) group. This is despite the fact that, in recent years, counter-movements on behalf of advantaged group members (#NotAllMen, #MenToo, #AllLivesMatter) have often been characterized by attempts to defend against threats to their group's morality (e.g., by denying the advantaged group's role in perpetrating harm; Bilali, 2013); by minimizing the severity of the wrongdoing (Leidner et al., 2010; Bilali et al., 2012); and/or by arguing that the advantaged group has suffered more than the disadvantaged group (competitive victimhood; Noor et al., 2012; Sullivan et al., 2012; Young and Sullivan, 2016).

In the context of women's disclosures of sexual harassment, men's backlash often includes defensive strategies designed to downplay or outright deny the issue of violence against women (Sullivan et al., 2012; Flood, 2019; Flood et al., 2021; Okuyan and Vollhardt, 2022). “Not all men” is a common argument used to claim that sexual violence is only perpetrated by a few “bad apples”, thereby allowing men to deny the structural nature of gendered violence by positioning it as a problem attributable to a “deviant” few (Flood, 2019). In response to “#MeToo”, “#MenToo” responded with claims that men are also the victims of sexual harassment and violence—or, the victims of false rape allegations (Gruber, 2009; Flood et al., 2021; de Maricourt and Burrell, 2022). As victims are often viewed as morally superior to perpetrators, claims to victimhood (such as “#MenToo”) can function to defend against moral image threats by asserting one's own group has “moral credentials” (see also Noor et al., 2012; Sullivan et al., 2012, p. 102; Young and Sullivan, 2016).

Defensive reactions to reminders of ingroup harm have received substantial attention in social psychology (see Bandura et al., 1996; Bandura, 1999; Peetz et al., 2010; Noor et al., 2012; Sullivan et al., 2012; Rotella and Richeson, 2013; Bilewicz, 2016; Bilali and Vollhardt, 2019). In the present research, we propose that defensiveness—that is, the various strategies people can employ to protect against threats to their personal or group identity—may shape men's intentions to engage in progressive forms of collective action (i.e., their support for women's rights), and their intentions to promote the rights of their own (advantaged) group (i.e., support for men's rights). In the context of online content implicating men as the perpetrators of sexual harassment, we examine the relationship between men's social identification and concerns about their group's morality. We expect that men's need for morality should motivate defensive reactions regarding the issue of sexual harassment. We test whether defensiveness, in turn, is negatively related to men's intentions to act for women's rights, and positively associated with their intentions to act on behalf of the rights of their own group (i.e., for men's rights).

The present research

The current paper explores whether men's need to defend their group's moral identity shapes both their intentions to take action to promote equality for women and their intentions to act to advance the rights of their own (advantaged) group (as a form of reactionary collective action; Thomas and Osborne, 2022). We examine these ideas in the context of fabricated online content that emphasizes men's role in perpetrating sexual harassment (participants viewed tweets highlighting men's responsibility for maintaining and addressing sexual harassment). Based on the key tenets of the needs-based model (Shnabel and Nadler, 2008), we expect that men's need for morality will arise as a function of their commitment to their group membership (i.e., their social identification with men; Tajfel and Turner, 1979). Men's need for morality should, in turn, be associated with defensive strategies designed to protect their ingroup (see Figure 1 for our full conceptual model).

Figure 1

Figure 1. Conceptual model of how men's progressive and reactionary actions are shaped by morality needs and defensiveness.

Based on common ways groups can defend against threats to their identity identified in both the interpersonal and intergroup literatures, in the current studies we operationalized defensiveness as the extent to which men competed with women for victim status (competitive victimhood; Noor et al., 2012; Sullivan et al., 2012), perceived men as experiencing more harm as a result of sexual harassment in the workplace and its consequences—compared to women (Bilali et al., 2012)—and their engagement in pseudo self-forgiveness (the extent to which they let men “off the hook”, by minimizing harm, denying wrongdoing, and derogating the victim group; Hall and Fincham, 2005; Fisher and Exline, 2006; Woodyatt and Wenzel, 2013). Responses to each of these variables were parceled together and modeled as reflective indicators of defensiveness. This approach allows for consideration of the shared or common underlying construct of defensiveness, while transcending individual literatures on (for example) attributions of harm and competitive victimhood, per se. Statistically, the parceling approach we adopt creates a more parsimonious model while accounting for measurement error (rather than using all items separately; Hall et al., 1999).

Finally, we test the relationship between defensive construals regarding the issue of sexual violence, and men's intentions to participate in collective action for both women's rights and men's rights. Building on existing work regarding the influence of moral identity threats on advantaged group members' support for the disadvantaged group's protest (see Shnabel et al., 2013; Kende et al., 2020; Teixeira et al., 2020; Hässler et al., 2022), we expect that defensiveness will be negatively related to men's willingness to act collectively for women's rights. In contrast, we expect that defensiveness may positively predict collective action for men's rights—as publicly advocating for equality for men offers a means of deflecting attention away from the morally threatening issue of men's violence against women (Sullivan et al., 2012). If the hypotheses are supported, it would show that the same process of defensiveness explains variation in commitment to actions that promote justice for women (negative effect) and men (positive effect). We test our theoretical model (Figure 1) across three samples (total N = 733) using Multigroup Structural Equation Modeling (MSEM).

Openness and transparency

The current research was originally pre-registered on the Open Science Framework as three experiments that sought to manipulate a threat to men's need for morality via an accusation of ingroup wrongdoing: https://osf.io/fnxaq?view_only=6940e019f0114f04a32be8c56aee63dd.ⁱ We expected that the relationship between men's social identification and their need for morality would be strengthened in contexts where their group was explicitly implicated as responsible for women's victimization (i.e., when morality concerns are most salient; Sullivan et al., 2012; Knowles et al., 2014).

However, all three experimental manipulations were unsuccessful in shifting men's need for positive moral identity.¹ In all studies, men's need for morality was above the midpoint across conditions—highlighting the strength of the relationship between people's social identification and their need for their group to be seen as good and moral (Branscombe et al., 1999; Aquino and Reed, 2002; Ellemers and Barreto, 2003; Nadler and Shnabel, 2015). We believe that the failed manipulations speak to a key challenge of experimental social and political psychology: that it is often difficult to successfully shift the nature of people's deeply rooted identities, ideologies, attitudes, and behaviors (see Spears and Smith, 2001, for a discussion).

In the current paper we solely focus on reporting the results of our mediation model (Figure 1) across the three samples. In the interests of full transparency we report the stimuli, methods, results, and discussion regarding the threat manipulations in a Supplementary file.² This file also includes information regarding exploratory measures taken across the three studies. The original pre-registration documentation and data sets are stored in a repository on the Open Science Framework.

Method

Participants

All three samples were made up of North American men recruited online via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (TurkPrime; Litman et al., 2017). All participants were US citizens. Sample 1 comprised of 198 men (M_age = 37.99, SD_age = 12.99). They were predominantly White (88%) and heterosexual (89%). 55% were bachelor's degree educated or higher. Sample 2 included 296 men (M_age = 37.16, SD_age= 11.85). Participants were predominantly White (81%) and heterosexual (90.2%). Around 60% indicated that they had a bachelor's degree or higher. Sample 3 comprised of 239 men (M_age= 38.86, SD = 12.89; 93% heterosexual). 69% of participants identified as White, 18% as Asian, and 10% as Black. 63% reported they held a bachelor's degree or higher.

Procedure

The procedure was similar across the three samples. Participants completed a survey titled “Responses to Online Information”. The studies were advertised as surveys interested in understanding how people respond to information that they encounter on social media. All three studies used the same measures of social identification,³ need for morality, defensive strategies, and collective action intentions (for men's rights, and women's rights, respectively). Therefore, taking the data from these three separate samples, we conducted a combined analysis using multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) to test our theoretical model (Figure 1). Multigroup SEM allows for the testing of complex mediation models across groups (i.e., across different samples; Yuan and Chan, 2016). Below, we detail how each of our key constructs was measured.

Statement of power

Sensitivity analyses using pwrSEM v 0.1.2 (Wang and Rhemtulla, 2021) for parameter estimation in structural equation modeling showed that our samples (N = 198, 296, 239) were sufficient to detect an indirect effect (f = 0.03–0.13, i.e., a small effect; Cohen, 1988) of social identification on collective action intentions via need for morality and defensiveness, assuming an alpha of 0.05 and power of 0.80.

Measures

Unless otherwise indicated, items were answered on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). We report multi-item scale reliabilities using Cronbach's alpha (α) coefficients. Given that the measures of our key constructs were taken in the context of participants viewing (fabricated) Twitter content regarding women's disclosures of sexual harassment, some items reflect this specific context. See the Supplemental material file for all stimuli used across samples.

Social identification

One item from each of Leach et al.'s (2008) five subscales of social identification was adapted to assess men's social identification. Example items included “The fact I am a man is an important part of my identity” (centrality), “I am glad to be a man” (ingroup affect), and “I feel a bond with other men” (solidarity), α = 0.85–0.87 across samples. In sample 3, the measure of social identification was measured on a Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree).⁴

To control for potential order effects, the measure of social identification was counterbalanced with half of the participants completing the measure at the start of the survey and the other half completing the measure at the end of the study. The order in which participants completed the measure of ingroup identification did not impact their levels of identification, or the other main variables of interest.

Need for morality

Adapted from Shnabel and Nadler (2008), three items assessed participants need for their group to be seen as moral by members of the outgroup: “I wish that women would perceive men as moral”, “I would like women to know that men try to act fairly, and “I would like women to understand that men are not harsh people”, α = 0.88–0.89 across samples.

Defensiveness

As anticipated above, defensiveness was operationalized with a latent combination of variables that, together, conceptually denote ways group members can defend against threats to their ingroup's moral image, either by downplaying their group's role in perpetrating harm, or through attempts to claim victim status.

Competitive victimhood was captured by the extent to which men believed their group is victimized more than women. Four items were adapted from Kahalon et al. (2019): “[Economically/politically/socially] men in America are discriminated against more than women” and “Men in America are now suffering more emotional pain than women”, α = 0.92 across samples.

One item (adapted from Bilali et al., 2012) measured participant's perceptions of the severity of harm inflicted on their own group compared to women due to the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace, “Which group experiences more harm as a result of sexual harassment against women in the workplace?”. Responses were measured on a bipolar scale where 1 = women and 7 = men, such that higher scores reflected the perception that men suffer more harm due to sexual harassment, compared to women.

Six items measured the extent to men engaged in pseudo self-forgiveness (letting their group “off the hook” for wrongdoing; Hall and Fincham, 2005; Woodyatt and Wenzel, 2013; Wenzel et al., 2023) by denying their group's involvement in perpetrating sexual harassment and blaming women for the issue of sexual harassment. Example items include: “I think the person in the tweet was really to blame for what happened”, “I'm not really sure whether what men did was wrong”, and “Men aren't the only ones to blame for what happened”, α = 0.83–0.85 across samples.

Collective action intentions for men and women

Participants indicated their agreement with a series of statements involving intentions to act on behalf of their own group (men) and women, e.g. “I intend to advocate for equality for [women/men] in my own place of work”, “I intend to raise awareness of the issues that some [women/men] experience in the workplace by posting on social media”, (men: α = 0.61–0.68, women: α = 0.57–68).

Results

Preliminary analyses

Given that sample 3 measured social identification on a 9-point scale and samples 1 and 2 used a 7-point scale, our first step was to transform this scale to a comparable 7-point scale. No other transformations were applied.

Means, standard deviations, and correlations between variables for each of the three samples can be found in Table 1.

Table 1

Table 1. Means, standard deviations and correlations between variables for the three samples.

Testing our hypothesized model

Multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted using Amos 29.0 to test our hypothesized mediation model. We tested a model where regression weights for all paths were constrained to be equal across samples (that is, we assumed that the relationships between variables would not differ across different populations, in this case, the samples from the three discrete studies). Social identification was a direct predictor of men's need for morality. Need for morality was expected to be positively associated with defensiveness, which should, in turn, be negatively associated with men's intentions to participate in collective action in solidarity with women. Further, we tested whether men's defensiveness was also significantly positively related to their intentions to act to promote the rights of their own group (i.e., men's rights).

We report several widely accepted model fit indices: the comparative fit index (CFI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR). Cut-off points for these fit indices were: 0.95 or higher for CFI; 0.08 or lower for SRMR, and values of 0.01, 0.05, and 0.08 indicating excellent, good, and acceptable fit, respectively for RMSEA (Hu and Bentler, 1999; Bentler, 2007). Indirect effects were computed using the indirect effects command in Amos with 10, 000 bootstrap samples (95% confidence intervals). We concluded that the indirect effect was significant when the 95% CI did not include zero.

The model evidenced good fit with the data, CFI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.06. The results of the constrained model with standardized (beta) path weights is shown in Figure 2 (note that the regression weights are similar across samples as we have constrained the parameter estimates to be the same—accordingly, differences are due to variation in sample standard deviations). All paths are significant at p < 0.001, except for the defensiveness-collective action (for men's rights) path, which was significant at p < 0.01 for samples 2 and 3.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Mediation model predicting men's intentions to act for women's and men's rights. values are standardized regression coefficients for the hypothesized structural model. the values for the model in sample 1 are to the left of the slash, sample 2 in the middle, and sample 3 on the right. **denotes that the path is significant at p < 0.001. *denotes that the path is significant at p < 0.01. N.B. the residual error terms for both collective action intention variables (for men and for women) were allowed to covary.

There was a significant negative indirect effect of social identification on collective action (for women) via need for morality and defensiveness across all three samples (see Table 2). There was a significant, positive indirect effect of social identification on collective action (for men) in samples 2 and 3.

Table 2

Table 2. Indirect effects across samples.

Discussion

The current paper examined men's intentions to act for women's rights (i.e., their support for progressive collective action) and their intentions to act to advance the rights of their own (advantaged) group (i.e., their support for reactionary action). Drawing on the insights of the social identity approach (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) and the needs-based model of reconciliation (Shnabel and Nadler, 2008), we tested whether (a) men's social identification was negatively associated with their intentions to act for equality for women and positively related to their intentions to advocate for men's rights, and (b) whether men's need for morality and defensiveness mediated these effects.

Three studies provide evidence for our conceptual model (Figure 1). Men's social identification was positively related to their desire for women to accept their group as good and moral, which, in turn, increased their defensiveness regarding the issue of men's violence against women. In line with empirical work on the impact of morality concerns on support for progressive social change (Kende et al., 2020; Teixeira et al., 2020), we show that men's attempts to defend their group's morality was negatively associated with their intentions to engage in collective action for women's rights (samples 1–3). However, we expand on previous research by showing that men's defensiveness was positively related to their intentions to participate in action to promote the rights of their own group, over and above their decreased commitment to advocate for equality for women (this effect was significant in samples 2 and 3).

Overall, our results suggest that advantaged group member's need to protect their group's moral identity may not only act as a barrier to their participation in actions to advance the rights of the disadvantaged group—but may also motivate them to act to advocate for the rights of their own (privileged) group. These findings seem particularly significant, given that supporters of reactionary counter-movements to feminist efforts (such as “#MenToo” or “#HimToo”) commonly argue that the use of these hashtags simply represent attempts to broaden the “inclusivity” of the gender equality movement (Boyle and Rathnayake, 2020). However, in the current research, men's intentions to act on behalf of their own group were associated with downplaying the issue of violence against women, blaming women for the issue of sexual harassment and assault, and claiming that men suffer more (politically, socially, economically) than women. These results align with work by West et al. (2021) in the context of racial inequality—who note that while supporters of “All Lives Matter” (ALM) typically argue that ALM is “more inclusive” than “Black Lives Matter”, support for ALM is associated with color-blind ideologies that seek to deny the reality of racial inequality.

Future research

The pattern of results in the present studies suggest that potential solutions to attenuating the relationship between men's social identification and their need to defend their group's moral identity may lie in targeting the nature of men's social identification—that is, “what it means” to be a man. This could include attempts to align male identity with a “pro-gender equality” orientation (or opinion; Bliuc et al., 2007), for example, by manipulating identity normative content to include men's expressions of support and engagement with women's rights (see Wiley et al., 2013). Further, endorsement of normative content by prominent group leaders has been shown to increase the likelihood group members adopt norms as central to their group identity (Haslam et al., 2015; see also Subašić et al., 2022). Future research could therefore examine the influence of such identity and leadership manipulations on men's need for morality, and the flow on effects for defensiveness and men's collective action intentions.

In all three samples our collective action measures (intentions to support women's rights and men's rights) were positively correlated (r's = 0.61, 0.63, 0.64). This finding suggests that, on average, participants may have viewed support for men's rights and women's rights as compatible commitments. It is possible that this finding reflects an issue with our measure of collective action intentions—which tapped into support for “men's rights” and “women's rights” broadly. This made it difficult to know the specific actions men had in mind when considering advocating on behalf of rights for women or rights for men. It is possible that some participants interpreted “men's rights” in the context of liberating men from restrictive patriarchal norms, a perspective that aligns with the promotion of women's rights (both pursuits aim to dismantle systemic gender inequalities). Conversely, some participants may have construed “men's rights” to mean protecting men from perceived threats or disadvantages. This divergence in understanding what constitutes men's rights could explain why the two measures are positively associated with each other overall, while they are related in opposing ways to men's need to defend their group's morality. As a result, it would be important for future work to assess a range of context-specific progressive and reactionary actions that men could support. For example, research could examine the likelihood that men attempt to protect other men from sexual assault allegations, or their support for programs designed to address “toxic” masculinity (see Mikołajczak et al., 2022, p. 15). We should also clarify that reactionary action should not be conceptualized as the reverse (inverse) of progressive action; there are many factors that would explain people's engagement in reactionary action that would not explain participation in progressive forms of action—and vice versa (Osborne et al., 2019; Choma et al., 2020).

In the present paper we focus on one particular type of morality need—men's need for moral-social acceptance from members of the outgroup (i.e., to be perceived as fair and moral by women; Shnabel and Nadler, 2008). However, research on morality-based threats has distinguished between threats to the ingroup's moral essence (“moral shame”; Allpress et al., 2014), and threats to the ingroup's moral reputation (“image shame”). Importantly, these distinct types of threat have divergent effects on intergroup outcomes (e.g., how advantaged group members react to conversations regarding inequality between groups; Eckerle et al., 2023). Thus, future work could explore the nuances around different kinds of identity threats (moral, meritocractic, status), and how they each shape people's participation in progressive vs. reactionary forms of collective action. Such research could also tease apart when advantaged group members will use a particular defensive strategy over another, and investigate the influence of each on support or opposition for actions to support disadvantaged or advantaged groups (see also, Shuman et al., 2024). Further, single item measures are limited in capturing the complexity of psychological constructs; future research should therefore seek to use more comprehensive measures of psychological defensiveness to improve validity and reliability.

Limitations

Adopting a latent measurement approach using multi-group SEM allowed us to test a complex set of hypotheses while taking measurement error into account. However, given the correlational nature of the data we cannot make any claims regarding causation or the direction of effects. Nevertheless, the ordering of variables in our mediation analyses is consistent with past theory and research (Shnabel and Nadler, 2008; Noor et al., 2012; Sullivan et al., 2012; Shnabel et al., 2013). Despite this, it is possible that men's intentions to participate in collective action on behalf of their own group may motivate them to defend their group more strongly. Similarly, men's defensiveness (e.g., denying that men have caused harm) may further heighten their need to convince women group of their morality—and this need may, in turn, reinforce men's identification with their ingroup. It is likely that the relationships are dynamic and interdependent (see also Stott and Drury, 1999; Drury and Reicher, 2009; Thomas et al., 2009; Dixon et al., 2020). Indeed, it is established that social identities both produce, and are produced by, intra- and inter- group processes (Thomas et al., 2022). However, future experimental work is needed to untangle the relationships outlined here more concretely.

It is important to acknowledge that support for both progressive and reactionary forms of social change are not clearly divided across the boundaries of “advantaged” or “disadvantaged” group membership (Siem et al., 2013; Dixon et al., 2020; Thomas et al., 2022). Advantaged group members often engage in action to support disadvantaged group members, and disadvantaged group members often engage in actions that seemingly go against their group interests (e.g., anti-feminist women; Mikołajczak et al., 2022). The current studies also did not account for how multiple group memberships—such as race or sexual orientation—intersect with gender identity to influence responses (Howard and Renfrow, 2014; Bowleg, 2017). A nuanced account of support for progressive and reactionary collective actions should therefore consider social identities that transcend traditional intergroup boundaries, as well as how people's membership in multiple groups intersect to shape their support for particular forms of social change (see also Cole, 2009; Nair and Vollhardt, 2020).

A final point concerns the generalizability of the current findings to other contexts of structural inequality between groups. It is important that models of collective action explain behavior across a variety of intergroup contexts (including those in non-Western/non-WEIRD countries; Henrich et al., 2010). Thus, future work should explore whether these results apply in other intergroup contexts.

Conclusion

The current findings bridge together the literature on conservative forms of collective action (Jost et al., 2017; Osborne et al., 2019; Becker, 2020) with work on group's psychological needs (Shnabel and Nadler, 2008; Siem et al., 2013; Nadler and Shnabel, 2015)—and the defensive strategies groups can take to address those needs (see Bilali and Vollhardt, 2019, for a review). This synthesis seems particularly important, given the rise of counter-movements from advantaged group members, and how these movements often involve assertions of the ingroup's morality (e.g., through competing for victim status; Young and Sullivan, 2016). Okuyan and Vollhardt (2022) note that advantaged group members' resistance to progressive social change need not be overtly violent to cause harm. That is, while defensive reactions may appear to be less harmful than more violent forms of intergroup resistance, they are insidious precisely because of how they subtly work to obscure the reality of group-based inequalities, and, as a result, cast doubt on the necessity of social change. The current findings indicate a need for further research to investigate how morality needs and defensiveness shape (and are shaped by) social movements that seek to challenge or uphold the status quo.

Data availability statement

The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found below: https://osf.io/bk4md/files/osfstorage?view_only=6940e019f0114f04a32be8c56aee63dd.

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by Flinders University Human Research Ethics Committee. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author contributions

AB: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. ET: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. LW: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.

Funding

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsps.2024.1356998/full#supplementary-material

Footnotes

1. ^There are a number of reasons for why this might have been the case. One reason might be that the nature of the threat manipulation may have been fairly inconsequential to male participants: It described one women's disclosure of sexual harassment. That is, given that allegations of men's wrongdoing are commonplace, and given the frequency of interactions between men and women in personal, professional, and political life, attempts to threaten men's need for morality experimentally may have been overpowered by the socio-political context in which this research was conducted.

2. ^Study 3 also manipulated the salience of men's social identification to provide causal evidence regarding the relationship between men's identification and their need for morality. We include information (method, results, discussion) regarding this manipulation in the Supplementary material.

3. ^Social identification used the same items across samples but was measured using different scale-points in Study 3.

4. ^Because of the relatively high mean for social identification (above the mid-point) in samples 1 and 2, a 9-point scale was used in sample 3 in an attempt to see whether there was greater variation in identification when more response options were available.

i. ^Further deviations from original pre-registration documentation

1. ^Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test our hypothesized model rather than PROCESS as specified in our pre-registration document for Study 1.

2. ^We did not initially pre-register defensiveness as a latent variable in Study 1 and 2. Defensiveness as a latent variable was pre-registered in Study 3.

3. ^Collective action intentions (to promote [men/women]) were initially pre-registered as exploratory variables but are reported here as focal outcome variables.

4. ^The pre-registration documentation for Study 1 and Study 2 conceptualized an accusation of harm as the predictor variable and social identification as a moderator variable.

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