Does Masculinity Boost Men's Mental Health?

Malcolm and Simone discuss new research showing masculinity correlates with better mental health in men, contrary to common toxic masculinity narratives. More life satisfaction and less negativity about masculinity predicts higher wellbeing. They compare Odysseus vs Achilles masculinity, protective vs nurturing gender norms, reasons for voting differences, and information gaps affecting worldviews

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Yeah. And a lot of people, they point this out and they're like, this is why women shouldn't vote.

And this, you know, does they, they'll say that this causes differential voting behavior in men and women and that if women were voting, we would have a better outcomes.

And I don't know, like I actually, I want, I want to come at this like as, as much of an outsider as possible. Is this true?

Simone Collins: I question, though, the extent to which this, these dynamics of conflict and, Like the winning party translate over to, to politics like to political issues. Like I, I, I don't. Are

Malcolm Collins: you denying that men and women vote differently?

No,

Simone Collins: no, no. I, I do think I do. Well, we know, we know that men and women vote differently and have very different points that you're making.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: You sure? I appreciate it. So Simone, we'll get started now. I am so excited to be talking with you. So we have this policy where we send each other interesting research when we find it. And Simone sent me some research [00:01:00] today, which was.

Really elucidating because I always like when research disconfirms the hypothesis that the researcher went into it with. So, the researcher was looking at the really high suicide rate in men when compared with women. You know, we see this. Right, right.

It's a sign of, , mental health issues in our society.

And he assumed and I can see how somebody, especially if they're tainted by like the virus would assume this that, well, that must be what a men have that women don't have. It's masculinity. Therefore, it's masculinity, which is causing this because masculinity is like a toxic thing for men to experience.

Simone Collins: Mm. Masculinity. Jacuzzi.

Malcolm Collins: So then he ran a big study, a big study. He ran a big study on this. And what he found is that actually masculinity correlated with much better mental health in men instead of worse mental health in men.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So let's, let's get into this. Cause I thought it was interesting. And there's a really great. Overview, maybe Malcolm, you can link to it from PsyPost, which we've been reading [00:02:00] since God, like 2016. I love PsyPost so much. PsyPost. org. P S Y P O S T. They, they post summaries of a lot of psychology studies as they come out.

They link to them, which is very helpful because so many articles, like we're talking New York Times, Wall Street Journal, never linked to the studies they reference it drives me nuts. Cause then you can never like what's the methodology like, and then often what they also do now that they've grown to become a bigger brand than they used to be, is they will interview the researchers that have just.

published the study, which is just great. So this particular study was authored by John Berry. That's the guy that Malcolm was talking about. And it was, it was published in Perspectives in Male Psychology. Or sorry, he's the author of Perspectives in Male Psychology as an introduction.

But so the study that he did that we're talking about here that I thought was really interesting and shared with Malcolm was one in which he surveyed over 2, 000 men in the [00:03:00] UK. And over 2000 men in Germany. So this is like, you know, specific set of people. And I think it's really important to like set that as a baseline.

The site post summary states, a key part of the survey was the positive mindset index, a tool used to measure mental positivity. The scale consists of questions designed to assess the feelings of happiness, confidence, control, emotional stability, motivation, and optimism. The survey also included several questions specifically about masculinity designed to understand how men perceive its impact on their lives.

These questions were grouped into categories that reflected whether men saw masculinity as having a negative or positive impact on them, or whether they considered it irrelevant in today's society. Now, what's interesting is the findings which I think reinforce a lot of what we're discussing with culture and with, with sexuality and with relationships men who reported greater satisfaction with their personal growth had significantly higher mental positivity.

So this has nothing to do with masculinity, but that is interesting. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. This was the strongest predictor of mental [00:04:00] wellbeing in both countries. Contrary to stereotypes of declining happiness with age, the study found that older men reported higher levels of mental positivity.

I also think this is really important and there's something I heard on the Red Scare podcast recently. They were quoting someone else when they were saying this, but like someone apparently had some quote about how like is wisdom really wisdom or just like the lack of hormonal influence as you get older?

Like, which I kind of wonder about that. But I do think that when it comes to people, especially men idolizing that very young Andrew Tate kind of mindset, I think this is good evidence or like just another little. Note that the Andrew Tate mindset, the youthful mindset, the highly hormonal mindset does not necessarily correlate with satisfaction and well being.

Well, and I

Malcolm Collins: think that when most people think about like masculinity, masculinity, the masculinity. That is being bemoaned by the left the most, or that is most threatening to them. It's [00:05:00] the stoicism form of masculinity. And it is not the, you know, bombastic Andrew Tatey masculinity. Yeah. And it makes sense that if you build a culture to me, at least it just seems intuitive, that shames a stoic approach to life, that that culture is going to have much, much lower mental health.

Than a culture that embraces a more stoic approach to life. 100% And, and this also goes to the other video that we had filmed which will probably come out before this on sexuality. And you know, when we teach our kids about sex and I was talking in that one about when I personally was younger, like hormones, a lot of people were like, don't you want to be like pumped up on tons of testosterone?

Don't you want to be like, No! Like, that's terrible! It's not a good feeling. It's not good for your mental health. I can see how any male is going to increasingly get better mental health the further they escape the tyranny of their pre programmed biological instincts. Which [00:06:00] is not the same as masculinity.

The pre programmed biological instincts is boyishness. Yes! It's very different than masculinity, you know, boyishness. Is like, I'm going to fight everyone. I'm going to play with my little toy soldiers. I'm going to, you know, everything's a threat to me.

The root cause of all of the world's problems is basically That there's not enough men who walk around their houses with swords. There's not enough men like me who do whatever they want.

If every man on earth walked around with a sword, then when the females who have been emotionally manipulated try and manipulate the men, the men won't listen. That'll make the female have more respect for the man. And most of the issues of the world, would basically go away.

Malcolm Collins