The Impact of Masculinity on 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: Whereas I think masculinity is much more being like an icebreaker to life.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Interesting. Now, you know, I was thinking like, well, then what are like archetypes of boyishness versus masculinity? And you kind of have. Odysseus versus Achilles, right? So [00:07:00] Achilles is like, he throws a tantrum, he hides in his tent. You know, he like, you know, it just, there's severe problems emotionally, very clearly.

I mean, the man is worse than, you know, a woman with PMS who has borderline personality disorder. And then you have Odysseus who just like plays the long game, tries his best to not get distracted, is obviously an imperfect person, but fights through yeah, that's interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Clear in the way that study was worded, it would have captured Odysseus masculinity much more than it would have captured this boyishness you see in Achilles and I really couldn't think of a better dichotomy here and it's just important, you know, our younger viewers to not overly conflate masculinity with being like Achilles because he acts like a little b***h, to be honest.

He

Simone Collins: does though, and he was very not helpful. Anyway, so in terms of what the study found with masculinity, you know, we already talked, I mean, well, yeah, so in addition to like age being more correlated with happiness and men who are satisfied with their [00:08:00] personal growth, being more happy, also men who are satisfied with their health were more like, so like, thank you, captain obvious.

And there are so many psychology studies that are like, this is just like, you know, people who are healthy, you seem happier. Your whole but here, so, perhaps most notably says cypost. org. The study found that men who had a less negative view of masculinity reported higher levels of mental positivity.

This was particularly evident in the UK sample. In other words, when men disagreed with statements such as, quote, masculinity prevents me from talking about how I feel about my problems, unquote. They tended to have a better overall mental outlook in Germany. Not only did a less negative view of masculinity correlate with better mental health, but a positive view of masculinity was also a significant predictor of higher mental positivity.

Positive views of masculinity encompassed attitudes, such as feeling a sense of protectiveness toward women and a desire to be a strong pillar of support from one's family. Again, total Odysseus, not Achilles. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and, and, and what's very [00:09:00] interesting is These, if you look at somebody like Andrew Tate, these are things that he wouldn't have answered.

Right. He, he, or, or not as, as strongly. I mean, some of his statements say that he might be on the edge or he would have a different relation to these questions than I think normal people would. But it's, it's really capturing that sort of stoic sort of, monogamous father figure within a family is what's being measured here.

And more than that, one who doesn't make excuses for why he's not doing things. If you look at the question like, My masculinity prevents me from sharing my emotions. These are people who are not saying that this is a problem for them, right? And I wouldn't say that it's a problem for me in that I think masculinity or not masculinity showing emotions is sinful, especially indulging in them.

And I expect my wife just as much as me to not indulge in that aspect of, of, of personality. I think that when you indulge in an individual's emotions, I mean, one of the most toxic things you can have in a relationship. Is the belief [00:10:00] that an emotional state is justification for an action? Oh, yeah And say I did this because I was angry It's like well then learn to control your anger or I acted this way because you made me feel this way well F*****g suck it up though How I made you feel has nothing to do my actions were designed to move our family towards a goal if that ended up impeding your feelings, then that's something that you need to work on.

And that was a personal failure on your part, not a mandate for some sort of counteraction.

Simone Collins: Precisely. Yeah. I, I also I, I think it's interesting that they highlighted this protectiveness towards women as a. Something as, as a notable element of masculinity, because it's just not really something that's discussed.

I think these days, because frankly, women feel much more like the aggressors these days than than people to protect. But then when I think about all the things that I associate with more traditional masculinity that I [00:11:00] find to be really hot, but also that I find to be really. Prosocial it is, you know, when men open doors for women, even when men reflexively stand up when a woman gets up at a table you know, in a formal dining situation, you know, just all these like sort of shows of protectiveness and difference the way that you, for example, walk on the, the, which, whichever is the dangerous side of the street and help me around and help me with bags and everything like that.

Which you constantly do because obviously I'm like carrying dangerous amounts of stuff to, I don't know, I have a death wish. So yeah, it's, I think that's interesting. And I also think that like there, there, there's always these, these vestigial parts, vestigial parts of my progressive upbringing that will like screech out when it reads things like this of being like, Oh, protective toward women.

That's disgusting. Women don't need protection. But then I also think about like, when we think about traditional femininity. Women are not protective toward men. No, but they are very nurturing toward men. [00:12:00] And I think that, you know, both both versions of, of positive masculinity and positive femininity actually involve taking a lot of responsibility and, and making.

the well being of someone else part of your personal responsibility. So masculinity involves protecting women and doing right by women. Femininity involves nurturing men and supporting men

Malcolm Collins: more than protecting women. I think it's making the well being of others, your personal responsibility, you know, back to that we always say that.

Difference between a citizen and a civilian and the citizen makes the safety of the human race, their personal responsibility. But I think that that's a very masculine way of relating to one's nation or one species. Whereas women see the nurturing of the human race

Simone Collins: as their personal responsibility. But also you're not seeing that like that is, that is something that is absent from modern femininity in a way that I think is, is damaging.

And I don't think [00:13:00] like, I think. The instinct is, Oh, women don't do it because it doesn't do them any good. But I actually think that the primary beneficiary of both male protectiveness towards women and female nurturing towards men is the giver. Like you gain self ownership, self mastery.

Responsibility, an internal locus of control, and frankly, greater control over a situation when you are in, in the process of assisting someone else because it sort of forces you to not be hopeless and helpless and, and flailing about it forces you to be in command of a situation. You know, it almost, you're, do you remember the story of with the the Hamas attacks?

There was that one Jewish grandmother who like gave tea.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yes, until they, they were able to all be murdered.

Simone Collins: And yeah, that, that's a very interesting, like,

Malcolm Collins: death through nurturing. They were going to kill her and her husband and she's this little old [00:14:00] lady.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and she's like, well, I'm like, I'm going to make you tea.

Like, you're probably hungry

Malcolm Collins: right now. Yeah, try to treat them as hospitably impossible. While she was feeding information to the IDF about where the people were in the house and everything like that. To the point where they were able to kill them before they, they killed the old couple, which they were talking about doing, they were planning on doing, but she was just so nurturing and non threatening in the way she was acting.

But it's

Simone Collins: still a very feminine form. Yeah, and it's a very feminine form of ownership. Right. It's a very feminine form of taking command, you know, how did she do it? And how did she do it in a way that didn't stop men in, in, in a moment of very high aggression from stymieing her, like obviously had she acted in a, in a masculine fashion, she would have been instantly killed.

Right. But she reacted in a, I mean, this goes back, why am I on the odyssey right now? But like. What did Odysseus's wife do? Oh, yes. With all the suitors. She yeah, with all the suitors. She was, she hosted them. She hosted [00:15:00] them, and she bought time and she bought a lot of time, like

Malcolm Collins: an heroic amount of time.

Yeah, like

Simone Collins: Al, because Ika was probably super confused, you know, she's just like, you know, she didn't say yes to anyone. so Anyway, I think that's the, the, just like the, the, the note of protecting women. I also

Malcolm Collins: love this aggressive hosting that you're sort of talking about. Hostile hosting. Yeah.

Everyone's got to watch out if Simone's hosting you too many times.

Simone Collins: Defensive, defensive hosting. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: There's different ways that cultures relate to femininity and masculinity. And I think that this is also really important. There are the aspects of us that are biologically hard coded, which I think exists between cultural groups.

But I'm almost certain that there are, you know, some genetic differences between cultural groups in terms of like the average sociological profile of a male. Yeah. And

Simone Collins: that's why I was like, this is German and UK men, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, but the point I'm making is, is I don't know [00:16:00] if, if women, for example, of all, you know, as no cultural groups have exactly the same sociological profile when, when you think about how they contrast with men for example, women in our group are generally much more masculine and aggressive I think in the, in the, in the context of defense then would be expected of other cultural groups.

Simone Collins: Do you think that's in American women? Do you think that's because of the preponderance of Scots Irish? Women,

Malcolm Collins: yes, it's, it's likely due to the preponderance of Scotch, the Irish woman and people who were living on the frontier for a long time. Yeah. Because frontier living requires, we talked about this in the episode of why don't you zone guns?

Of, of martial cultures versus non martial cultures and often the most extreme martial cultures. See it as the responsibility of not just the man to defend the household, but the woman to defend the household. And so you typically see weapons training in both men and women. And this is the, the cultural group that [00:17:00] we are predominantly descended from.

And thus when I think about what nurturing means to me, a part of nurturing is the literal protection that you show towards. the family which other cultures wouldn't see things that way. So I, I don't think that your natural instinct, if somebody broke into our house, I mean, you literally have an AR 15 right next to where you work is not to you know, bake them tea and cookies.

Simone Collins: I don't know. Well, I mean, I, I mean, yes, you're absolutely right. And that's why, and not just in that room, in every room, there's a little, a little surprise. Be it my bow and arrow or the bear spray, your giant hammer, the rifle, sorry, the over under shotgun. Anyway, the, the, what many psychologists though had, had come up with, which I, I don't know, it still resonates with me.

And it's still how I sometimes react in a panic situation is that, well, Men, on average, are more likely to have a fight or flight response. Women may tend to show instead a tend and befriend response. [00:18:00] Where, they feel like, I, I'm, you know, I'm just going to, I'm going to watch after my children. I'm going to try to protect who's around me, and I'm going to try to befriend.

The new people who have taken over my village and I'm now going to be enslaved to that kind of thing. So I don't know, like, I, I, I think that there, there are cultural differences.

Malcolm Collins: We mentioned this in the pragmatist guide to sexuality under the evolution of sexuality that was looking at games. And it showed that when in like a, I think it was like physical sports games when you had men and they were on a team and their team was beginning to lose.

They would show more camaraderie with their teammates. Whereas when women's teams begun to lose, they would actually begin to show more camaraderie with the opposing team, which, which makes absolute sense. You know, if your village is being raided and you're a man, you are going to die. Almost certainly.

They

Simone Collins: have to kill you. I have to kill you. You're, you're too much of a liability.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Whereas it was [00:19:00] women. You gain an advantage from doing this tended preferred response. Now this doesn't mean that you don't still have loyalty to your group and that, you know, when people's backs are turned, you're not going to end up killing them, right?

Yeah. But only in so far as you can go back to the way things used to be, you know? And it's in

Simone Collins: your evolutionary best interest to befriend and stay alive as long as possible. And the way to stay alive as long as possible is to be as friendly and non threatening as you can, because you may, you are not as likely to be killed by default.

Malcolm Collins: 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? I mean, women do vote proportionally more for. Consensus ideas which is, you know, potentially not something you would want in a, in an electorate, but I [00:20:00] think that generally you'd probably just be better.

Like, if you're like, Oh, limit voting to this group or that group, you're probably better limiting voting to people with kids. Like, I think that that actually makes sense because these people have a vested interest in the future of a country. And, and I, and

Simone Collins: I. No, no, no. Okay. I'm going to say no. I'm going to say people who are contributing.

Something,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, we'll do something on the state that we created. But one of the features of it is very much in line with what Simone said, where was in one of the branches of government, your vote is literally just how much you pay in taxes. And that is the sign of your societal contribution.

And, and that's, that's very different from these other systems, but I'm just thinking more broadly, like, like, is it women's fault? Like, is it women getting the vote fault? No, no, not at all. I don't think that that's a good description. of how things fell apart. But do women vote differently for men because they respond differently in these sort of conflict situations?

And a lot of people, they're like, well, you know, when women talk about this, they're like, well, a women controlled society, women would like, like, if there'd be more peace, there'd be less war because women have [00:21:00] this nurturing response, which is actually like verifiably not true from the evidence. If you look at during the European medieval ages there was a study done.

We cited, I think in our relationships book, the pragmatist guided relationships. It shows that women actually, when they were in charge of a country, when they were queen instead of king, the country was much more likely to go to war. Which is interesting. Now you can say, well, this is because they needed to secure their positions or whatever, because their rules were more tenuous, maybe.

Simone Collins: They're compensating, yeah. But also, like, women are terrifying, so I don't know. I, I also, I, 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. Well, I just, I mean, like if we're talking about like losing or winning [00:22:00] in a sports game or something like sort of this like zeitgeist, I'm going to go with the. Winning aggressor thing.

I don't think that's translating over to political. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: well then what would you say about, I mean, this is the way this is often framed within right away. Circles is they say that this response is why women are so pro immigration and so pro immigrant groups that are clearly hostile when these groups, and I should point out not all immigrant groups are hostile to the,

Simone Collins: but I think that's ignorance.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, or some immigrant groups that are clearly hostile to native populations.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But I think that's, that's ignorance to the hostility because the types of media outlets that women follow the stories that get the most clicks and that drive the ad revenue and therefore get the attention on women's.

Predominantly women's or women heavy platforms are those feel good stories, those victim stories, those, Oh, look at the cute children crossing the border stories, or look at the sad baby that died because he couldn't cross the border stories instead of the [00:23:00] look at these criminals who are coming in and raping people stories.

Because women don't like those stories. Women don't read those stories at the same rate. They don't share them at the same rate. That is like, again, coming back to this, like again, women nurture men. Protect. Even

Malcolm Collins: if they are more interested in the stories that trigger nurturing instincts, like this baby died because it wasn't getting fed, and less interested in the stories that trigger their defense instincts.

Simone Collins: Because women aren't into protecting, that's not their job.

Malcolm Collins: So because of the way that the online environment is sorting information, they're not getting access to the same types of information.

Simone Collins: That's very interesting. Yeah. And I was just going through as, as you and I were talking about this morning, this report on public opinion on nuclear power.

And like a huge, huge, huge predictor of whether someone was in favor of nuclear power as a green energy source and in general was if they felt, if they self reported that they were informed about it. But also women were both less informed about it and less in favor of it. And again, I think it's, it's about what you know.

So again, yeah, I think this is, and again, this is nobody's fault, right? Like women [00:24:00] just click through on certain types of articles more. And that means that women have you have applications only like sort of show a skewed perception of reality,

Malcolm Collins: biological differences that they had no choice in

Simone Collins: going back to like, you know, all this femininity, masculinity, nonsense.

Not that I mean it's like it's I feel weird talking about this because you and I are not like obsessed with Feminine and masculine roles, but we do very comfortably slot into them in our own household for sure. Yeah Which is weird so yeah, I, I just, it's, what I'm curious about is how this would translate over in like China, Japan, India, cultures that I understand less, like how much of, of masculinity as we understand it is a, is a European thing.

whAt if this study were to be executed in Korea, would we see different results? I don't know. I'm [00:25:00] curious. I'm curious. But very interesting point. Yeah. It's, it's hard to say. And I mean, who knows, there could be confounding factors here. You know, like it could be that people who associate more with masculinity are just more likely to be conservative and people who are conservative are more likely to also be religious and therefore have a stronger, harder cultural background.

And therefore a bunch of traditions and lifestyle. Amenities that just encourage better mental health. So it's not actually the masculinity that's causing better mental health, but rather the association with harder culture and a more disciplined mindset. That, that is at play here. Like, so maybe it's not the masculinity itself that makes people have better mental health.

Malcolm Collins: One thing I'd really like to see is women who are more masculine or rate themselves as more masculine. Do they have better mental health? Huh?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And I would guess that they do. I can google this really quickly. Hold on.

Simone Collins: I don't, [00:26:00] I, I'm not sure. And I, I, I guess the reason why I kind of have my doubts is.

Malcolm Collins: Right. It's sorry. Been a study done in both genders. Masculinity was associated with greater psychological wellbeing in both genders. Femininity was associated. With lower psychological

Simone Collins: well being. Well, being a woman is so hard.

We have feelings. I'm

Malcolm Collins: so sorry for

Simone Collins: your feelings. Woes and hysteria. And we give birth to babies. And it's horrible. I don't know how to deal with

Malcolm Collins: it. Deal. Well, I'm so glad that you are not as infected with femininity as your average

Simone Collins: woman. Basically not even female. I mean, really if I have to take the same amount of estrogen pills as like your average trans person, don't I count as like, not really a [00:27:00] woman?

Oh, wait, that's really offensive. Oh, sorry.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, I love you. Bye. Love you too, Simone. And you are very feminine, by the way, and very hot. Okay?

Simone Collins: Oh, thank you. I'm not as gorgeous as you are. Oh my god, I love you so much, Monk. I love you too.