6,353
edits
Demographics of inceldom: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Add Sparks et al. (2023)
m (→Costello study) |
(Add Sparks et al. (2023)) |
||
| Line 183: | Line 183: | ||
* Incels were less educated than control men. While a similar portion attained higher education at the undergraduate level, the incels were more likely to be high-school dropouts than control men and less likely to have a post-graduate university education. | * Incels were less educated than control men. While a similar portion attained higher education at the undergraduate level, the incels were more likely to be high-school dropouts than control men and less likely to have a post-graduate university education. | ||
* Incels were more likely to be [[NEET|NEETs]] (Not in Education Employment or Training) than non-incel men, though this effect was very small, with incels only being slightly more like to be NEET than would be expected by chance. Costello placed a high emphasis on incels' lower socioeconomic status as a cause of their inceldom, linking this finding to predominant evolutionary psychological theories of innate female economic hypergamy and desire for financial investment from their male partners. | * Incels were more likely to be [[NEET|NEETs]] (Not in Education Employment or Training) than non-incel men, though this effect was very small, with incels only being slightly more like to be NEET than would be expected by chance. Costello placed a high emphasis on incels' lower socioeconomic status as a cause of their inceldom, linking this finding to predominant evolutionary psychological theories of innate female economic hypergamy and desire for financial investment from their male partners. | ||
===Brandon Sparks=== | |||
Sparks et al. (2023) surveyed ''n'' = 67 self-identified incels, mostly Reddit users who were recruited "through study advertisements posted on related subreddits, mostly r/Virgin and to a lesser extent r/Antifeminists" and a comparison group of ''n'' = 103 "non-incel men" (Canadian psychology undergrads). Some undergrads also declared themselves incels and were included in that sample.<ref>https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-023-04275-z</ref> | |||
* '''Demographic data''' | |||
* Most incels and non-incels self-identified as heterosexual (92.5% and 82.5%, respectively). | |||
* 65.7% of the control group were White, while 54.4% of incels were White (a non-significant difference, χ2 = 2.14, ''p'' = .14). However, the geographical dispersion of the incel group is unknown (closed data). | |||
* 43% of incels had an undergrad or higher degree, compared to 31% of the control group. This difference is insignificant when you control for age, as the control group was mostly first-year university students, which is also an obvious selection bias. The appropriate comparison would be a representative sample of men from equal portions of the countries the incel participants came from, which is inconvenient to carry out. Nevertheless, compared to the general US male population of a roughly similar age bracket, this sample of incels didn't seem to have a markedly lower education level,<ref>https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_caa.pdf</ref> unlike what was found in Costello's sample. In fact, 22.4% of incels in this sample had a post-graduate degree, compared to 8% of US men in a similar age bracket. However, this survey's geographical heterogeneity and low sample size of incels would caution against drawing any conclusions from that information. | |||
* There were no statistically significant differences between the groups regarding political beliefs (Mann-Whitney U test, ''z'' = 0.85621, ''p'' = 0.39). | |||
* '''Mental health data''' (positive values are incels higher). | |||
* Incels had a greater fear of being single (''d'' = 1.55). | |||
* Incels were more depressed (''d'' = 1.02). | |||
* Incels were more anxious (''d'' = 0.59). | |||
* Incels had lower self-esteem than control men (''d'' = -1.09). | |||
* Incels were likelier to report an avoidant attachment style (''d'' = 0.74) and also more likely to report an anxious attachment style (''d'' = 0.45, 95% CI 0.14-0.76), which indicate lower views of attachment objects (such as family members and potential romantic partners) in the case of the former and negative views of themselves as an attachment object in the case of the latter (likely related to a greater fear of rejection, if the effect is robust.<ref>https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223185973_Development_and_validation_of_a_State_Adult_Attachment_Measure_SAAM</ref> Incels were less likely to report a secure attachment style (''d'' = -1.98). | |||
* '''Dating attitudes''' | |||
* Incels' self-perceived mate value was much lower than non-incels' (''d'' = -2.19). | |||
* Incels reported lower levels of social support (''d'' = -1.37) and were more lonely (''d'' = 1.47). | |||
* Incels also had higher levels of self-critical rumination (''d'' = 0.87). | |||
* Incels reported being less likely to externalize blame than the non-incel men (''d'' = -0.39, 95% CI -0.08 to -0.70) though this finding seems less robust. | |||
* The incels reported more use of solitary coping mechanisms on the amusingly named 'cope scale', such as venting (''d'' = 0.81, presumably primarily online) and self-blame (''d'' = 0.71), plus behavioral disengagement (''d'' = 1.13). | |||
* Incels were less likely to rely on others for emotional support (''d'' = -0.88) or to [[cognitive behavioral therapy|attempt to 'reframe']] their negative thoughts in a more positive manner (''d'' = -0.56). | |||
* Incels scored higher on sexual narcissism, though the measure used was only five items long and thus probably rather unreliable (''d'' = 0.5). | |||
* Incels scored higher in social dominance orientation, which reflects endorsements of hierarchies (''d'' = 95% CI: 0.09 - 0.72), another result that is possibly not robust. | |||
* Incels were likelier to believe women were sexually deceptive, a belief generally associated with hostile sexism<ref>https://pages.nyu.edu/jackson/sex.and.gender/Readings/AmbivalentSexism-Sage17.pdf p. 895</ref> (''d'' = 1.01). | |||
* '''Predictive model''' | |||
* A predictive model containing these various independent variables on the dependent variable of incel vs. non-incel identification found that perceived mate value and avoidant attachment predicted membership in the incel group.<br>Intriguingly, perceived mate value alone predicted group membership with 86% accuracy. These results contradicted the authors' prediction, as they thought loneliness and lack of social connection would strongly indicate incel group membership. This finding could suggest that individuals in the 'incel' group may not be necessarily overly pessimistic about their prospects in the mating market, contrary to a common assumption. Instead, incels' self-perceptions may mostly accurately reflect their lower mate value, although the chief underlying causes remain to be determined. This finding also may indicate the higher levels of poor mental health in the incel group are downstream of the factors that make them incel and are not predictive of their incel status, as incels themselves commonly argue. However, that hypothesis remains to be tested thoroughly. | |||
* '''COVID-19 Context''' | |||
* The [[COVID-19]] pandemic was ongoing during the survey, and the concomitant lockdowns and social restrictions may have given some 'non-incels' a taste of the kind of social isolation incels regularly experience.<br>This interpretation was suggested by the fact that rates of negative affect were higher among the non-incels than other comparative pre-COVID samples. Thus, these effects are likely understated in magnitude. | |||
==Young incels in the U.S.== | ==Young incels in the U.S.== | ||