1/10/2024 0 Comments Slacker imagesBut boys who remained close to their mothers, siblings and peers did not act as tough and were more emotionally available to their friends compared to those who were not as close. He found that boys were more likely to act tough and detached from their friends as they got older. Few differences were detected and most tended to dissipate over the course of middle school. Participants were from different racial/ethnic backgrounds: 20 percent were African-American, 9 percent were Puerto Rican, 17 percent were Dominican-American, 21 percent were Chinese-American, 27 percent were European-American and 6 percent were of another race or ethnicity.īoys from diverse ethnic and racial groups were equally able to resist these masculine stereotypes, going against the common belief that certain ethnic minority boys are more emotionally stunted and hypermasculine, said Santos. ![]() Santos looked at whether boys could resist being tough, emotionally unavailable, and detached from their friends as they moved from sixth to eighth grade whether ethnicity made a difference whether their relationships with their families and peer group fostered this resistance and whether resisting these images affected their psychological health. He also looked at how this would affect their psychological adjustment. Researcher Carlos Santos, PhD, of Arizona State University, examined 426 middle school boys’ ability to resist being emotionally stoic, autonomous and physically tough - stereotyped images of masculinity - in their relationships. "When you crowd out other types of media messages, you promote stereotypes and limit their options."īoys seem better adjusted when they resist internalizing "macho" images, according to a researcher who also presented at APA’s convention. Teaching boys early on to distance themselves from these images and encouraging them to find the lies in the messages can help, said Lamb. We wonder if the messages boys get about saving face through glorified slacking could be affecting their performance in school." Slackers are funny, but slackers are not what boys should strive to be slackers don’t like school and they shirk responsibility. "Boys are told, if you can’t be a superhero, you can always be a slacker. "In today’s media, superheroes and slackers are the only two options boys have," said Lamb. They can either be a "player" or a "slacker" - the guy who never even tries – to save face. She and her co-authors found that marketers take advantage of boys’ need to forge their identity in adolescence and sell them a narrow version of masculinity. To understand how the media and marketers package masculinity to boys, Lamb surveyed 674 boys age 4 to 18, walked through malls and talked to sales clerks and came to understand what boys were reading and watching on television and at the movies. The comic book heroes of the past did fight criminals, she said, "but these were heroes boys could look up to and learn from because outside of their costumes, they were real people with real problems and many vulnerabilities," she said. When not in superhero costume, these men, like Ironman, exploit women, flaunt bling and convey their manhood with high-powered guns. ![]() "Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity. ![]() "There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday," said psychologist Sharon Lamb, PhD, distinguished professor of mental health at University of Massachusetts-Boston. ![]() SAN DIEGO - Watching superheroes beat up villains may not be the best image for boys to see if society wants to promote kinder, less stereotypical male behaviors, according to psychologists who spoke Sunday at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.
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