Aggression: The preferred way for men to cling onto manhood

A team at the University of South Florida has based its findings on a series of experiments which also suggest that manhood is difficult to earn and easy to lose,` Current Directions in Psychological Science` journal reported.

"Gender is social. Men know this They are powerfully concerned about how they appear in other people`s eyes. And the more concerned they are, the more they will suffer psychologically when their manhood feels violated.

"Gender role violation can be a big thing, like losing a job, or a little thing, like being asked to braid hair in a laboratory," said Jennifer K Bosson, who led the team.

In the experiments, researchers used the hair-braiding task to force men to behave in a"feminine"manner and then they recorded what happened.

In one experiment, some men braided hair, others did the more masculine or gender-neutral task of braiding rope. But given the options afterwards of punching a bag or doing a puzzle, the hair-braiders overwhelmingly chose the former.

When one group of men braided hair and others did not, and all punched the bag, the hair-braiders punched harder. When they all braided hair and only some got to punch, the non-punchers evinced more anxiety on a subsequent test.

"Aggression is a manhood-restoring tactic", concludes the researchers.

Moreover, the researchers found that people tendancy to feel manhood is defined by achievements -- not biology -- whereas womanhood is seen primarily as a biological state.