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You are here: Home / Fall 2020 / Fall 2020: Course/Section / Fall 2020: 411-01 / PSYC 411-01_Fall20_Group3

Masculinity and Femininity as Predictors of Compliance to COVID-19 Behavioral Guidelines

Heather Fuller, Leah Salings, & Angie Cherikos

a Research Seminar Project supervised by Dr. Miriam Liss
(Fall 2020)

    Samantha Ferris
    2 Dec 2020
    5:03pm

    I thought your research topic was interesting and very relevant in todays times. I was wondering if there was a specific reason that you did not gather data in demographics on gender? Femininity and masculinity I feel can be seen in any gender so I do not think that the absence of this question had a strong effect on your results and the goal of your study but I was just curious about your reasoning for not adding it!

    Reply
      Leah Saling
      7 Dec 2020
      4:55pm

      That was actually a mistake on our end. We intended to include gender as a question in our demographics section, however, we didn’t catch our mistake until after data collection. I agree that aspects of femininity and masculinity can be seen in both genders and there may not have been a strong effect, although it would have been nice to see if there was more compliance, based on gender.

      Reply
    Hilary Stebbins
    3 Dec 2020
    6:59am

    This is very interesting! I like that you chose the constructs of masculinity and femininity as predictors rather than gender (although I agree with Sammie that it would be interesting to see gender effects). It makes me wonder whether you see these same relationship in other cultures where you see some “machismo” culture or whether masks have gotten caught up in the constructs of masculinity here in a way that they have not in other countries. Great job!

    Reply
    Laura Wilson
    3 Dec 2020
    8:03am

    Cool study! You read my mind! I definitely have been assuming that masculinity is one of the strongest predictors of mask wearing. So great research question! I had one question though…. were your levels of masculinity generally low or high in your sample. I see that you reported your mean and the “range” of the variables, but I wasn’t exactly sure exactly what those numbers represent. Typically ranges are reported as something like “1 to 5,” but you seemed to report them as a single number. I wasn’t quite sure how to interpret your means. But, I’d be curious to know whether your sample was generally high or low on your main construct and how that may impact your interpretation of your results.

    Reply
      Miriam Liss
      4 Dec 2020
      3:21pm

      Dr. Wilson, you get conceptual credit for this study. You mentioned it to me and I totally agreed and loved the idea. So when they wanted to predict behavioral compliance I mentioned it as one of many possible variables during our brainstorming session and they loved it and ran with it!

      Reply
    Anthony Lanza
    3 Dec 2020
    1:41pm

    This was an extremely interesting study and I had my own assumptions about the results. We are in a situation where the CDC protective guidelines of mask wearing and social distancing have become a political opinion for some reason. How do you think the politicization of mask wearing may have acted as a limitation on your results?

    Reply
      Leah Saling
      7 Dec 2020
      5:18pm

      This has definitely become a politicized concept. Political beliefs and ideations could have potentially been an influence on our results. Around 3/4 of our participants were just UMW psychology students. Many students at our university have very strong political opinions and they tend to be pretty similar. I have noticed that this concept has been rebellious in nature and many “anti-maskers” also have very similar political beliefs. A political component could potentially be added to this study to see if it is an even greater predictor of compliance.

      Reply
    Holly Schiffrin
    4 Dec 2020
    12:00pm

    It didn’t surprise me at all that risk taking was associated with non-compliance, but I was kind of surprised by violence being the only other significant predictor. It makes it seem like people who don’t wear masks are actively trying to harm others rather than just taking a personal risk. Also, related to the comments above on studying gender, you did ask that variable in your study. Did you consider adding it to your analysis?

    Reply
    Abby Reilly
    6 Dec 2020
    5:53pm

    I really like the age range of the study! With men having more Covid related deaths do you think that there are a lot of out outside influences like politics making it seem less significant? I never knew that most men look at the pandemic as a war.

    Reply
    David Rettinger
    7 Dec 2020
    9:10am

    What a great study! I do wonder why you chose the particular subscales that you did. What were the ones you left out, and why?

    Reply
    Amelia Emory
    7 Dec 2020
    2:42pm

    This study is so interesting and so relevant to today’s world. For me at least, I associated more masculine, aggressive men with not wearing masks, social distancing, and thinking that COVID-19 is some sort of hoax. Now I know there is some truth behind that assumption. Of course not all masculine people are like that, but from your study there does seem to be a correlation.

    Reply
    Madelyn DeCarli
    8 Dec 2020
    3:13pm

    I found this whole study to be interesting. Just from reading the title, I could predict what the results would be (masculinity tied to not following the CDC guidelines and femininity tied to following the CDC guidelines), but learning about the data that supported that claim and the psychology behind it was the most interesting part.

    Reply
    Erin Jones
    8 Dec 2020
    8:44pm

    This group had a nice insight.

    Reply
    Anna McCandless
    9 Dec 2020
    3:39pm

    This survey was very intriguing! I always enjoy seeing the results, and my predictions about the results were right. I thought that men would be more likely to not ignore the CDC guidelines for COVID, because of their aggression. I saw violence and risk-taking were the two factors of this survey that were correlated, which made lots of sense.

    Reply
    LaNadia Loving
    9 Dec 2020
    6:29pm

    I enjoyed learning and watching this study. I found it interesting how men have more deaths than women due to COVID. Women are more cautious by washing their hands, wearing masks, and social distancing. Although all men aren’t careless, I found it interesting how many more deaths they have than women.

    Reply
    Emma Hastings
    9 Dec 2020
    8:08pm

    I have seen more women than men not wearing masks, so this was really interesting to look at. I knew that wearing masks has become a political statement, and I wonder if your number would differ if you used political affiliation as a determining factor rather than gender.

    Reply
    Austin C Heath
    10 Dec 2020
    4:34pm

    Although looking at masculinity and femininity what was your target demographic? Was it primarily straight Members of society? There is a wide range of masculinity and femininity within the LGBTQIA+ community and a higher percentage of them willing to wear masks regardless if they’re masculinity or feminine.

    Reply

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