Men threatened by thought of their wives earning more

A recent survey experiment carried out at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s (FDU) PublicMind poll shows just how quickly men will respond to a threat to their masculinity and status as the head of the house.

According to the Harvard Business Review, the experiment consisted of asking an unusual question embedded into a standard political survey. The survey asked men who were married or living with their partners if they earned less, more, or as much as their partners did. One half of the respondents were randomly chosen to receive this question early in the survey, while the other half only got it at the end.

Dan Cassino, professor of Political Science at FDU and director of experimental research for the survey, says the question was asked to push men to think about threats to their gender roles, not for the actual answers.