Article archive / February 2019
Originally published: . Volume 10, No. 2. Source pages: 2.
In Monty Python's comedic satire of hyper-masculinity, King Arthur (riding his invisible horse) approaches a bridge guarded by the Black Knight and politely demands to cross. The two proceed to wage a lively battle until Arthur strikes off one of the Knight's arms. Blood gushes as only it can in British comedy. "Now stand aside worthy adversary," says Arthur.
" ‘tis but a scratch," says the Black Knight.
"A scratch!?" says Arthur. "Your arm's off!"
"I’ve had worse. Come on, you pansy."
The fight continues until Arthur hacks off the Knight's other arm. "You're indeed brave Sir Knight," says Arthur, "but the fight is mine."
"Oh, had enough have you?" taunts the Knight and begins kicking Arthur.
"Look you stupid bastard, you’ve got no arms left."
"It’s just a flesh wound."
The skit continues in comedic gore until the Knight, a stump on the ground, missing all his limbs, is left yelling over his shoulder, "You yellow bastard. Come back here and I'll bite your legs off! The Black Knight never loses!"
The caricature of hyper-masculinity reminds us that the authors of the new American Psychological Association (APA) Guidelines for practice with boys and men have a point––males might need to ease up at times.
But the APA message faltered. What the authors said and how they said it came across to many in the public as an unconvincing scold–– and a demeaning view of men.
I believe there are some reasons for the negative responses we received from the public that could have been prevented.
First, the authors took on too many complicated topics. They tried to address children and adults together, two profoundly different areas of psychology. And then they tackled aspects of racial differences, differences in sexual orientation, transgender issues, socioeconomic differences, then shifted perspectives to sexism, racism, and social status and entitlement. Topics rattled around like marbles in a bucket. Rationales were muddled and arguments unconvincing.
Since authors took gender as their unifying concept (we could see this based on their definitions section which listed gender, cisgender, gender bias, gender role strain, masculine ideology, gender role conflict, oppression, privilege, and gender sensitive), the authors were then trapped into having to cobble everything to gender.
The authors noted that "disparities" between males and females are a concern, but their reasoning seemed strange. So masculinity is why men don't live as long as women? So masculinity is the reason for more cardiovascular disease in men? Masculinity is why men are incarcerated more often than women? The authors were stuck with sounding like these were causes rather than correlations.
An element that helped create a "demeaning" tone, as cited by the public, was how the authors handled base rates. For example, the idea that masculinity is somehow the cause of "violence," when the base rate for violence is very low, and most males who possess a degree of masculinity, are not violent.
Another problem was that the authors omitted important themes that could have added balance and believability to their argument. How do we in today's world discuss men's health and happiness without an in depth look at the benefit of a good marriage? A search of the text revealed not a single use of the word marriage. And what about the staggering exodus of men from the labor market?
The public noted a "pathologizing" of men that could have been soothed by including kudos for the positive masculine. Some of humanity's greatest advances have come from the masculine combined with conscientiousness.
With these and other slants on the topic, the Guidelines appear to be dragged down in scientific rigor. What should be precise, unbiased thinking on such an important, complex topic, fell short. It looked like the authors didn't figure out how to separate the science from the social justice goals.
The Guidelines do not help us with our brand or reputation. The public already doesn't trust us, as Scott Lilienfeld has shown in his work about the public’s skepticism of scientific psychology. The Guidelines may have been a good idea overall, but what we said or how we said it, just did not ring true to many in the public.
I checked this with Pennebaker's linguistic analysis and discovered the public may be right. On the Authenticity scale, 1 to 100, professional scientific writing is low, averaging 24.8. But our Guidelines come in at 2.4. The Authenticity scale relates to honesty in writing, and the absence of self-deception.
The Black Knight isn't the only one with some self-deception at work. Psychology's poor reputation in the public is more than just a flesh wound.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.