How masculine ought I be? Men's masculinity and aggression

Male undergraduates completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) as they are (actual), as others thought they should be (ought), as they thought they s hould be ideally (ideal), and then rated the importance of each item. Discr epancy scores were derived by subtracting actual from either ought (ought d iscrepancy) or from ideal (ideal discrepancy) and weighting scores by the i mportance of each item. BSRI masculine items provided the basis for masculi nity discrepancies, and filler items, for general discrepancies. With only two or three exceptions, participants were Caucasian. Each man competed aga inst a bogus competitor on a computer version of the Taylor reaction-time a ggression paradigm that yielded a measure of both overt (intensity of the n oise blast putatively delivered to the opponent) and covert (noise blast du ration) aggression. Men with high masculine "ought" discrepancies engaged i n more covert-and not more overt-aggression than did lows, an effect nor mo derated by provocation level. Those with high masculinity scores were more overtly aggressive than were low masculinity men.