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Ken Michniewicz - Muhlenberg College. Allentown, PA, UNITED STATES

Ken Michniewicz

Assistant Professor Social Psychology | Muhlenberg College

Allentown, PA, UNITED STATES

Ken Michniewicz's research broadly explores the social consequences of the perception of manhood as a precarious social status.

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Biography

Dr. Michniewicz joined the department in 2015 and teaches Introductory Psychology and Social Psychology.

He has two main research areas. The first broadly explores the social consequences of the perception of manhood as a precarious social status. In a world striving to overcome explicit and implicit biases against women, understanding how gender stereotypes guide people’s behaviors and inform their related beliefs is crucial. Emerging research suggests that people implicitly believe that men must earn and defend their gender status through enacting stereotypically masculine behaviors (e.g., taking dangerous risks or physical aggression) or possessing stereotypically masculine qualities (e.g., possessing physical strength or bravery). He is specifically interested in the broad and sometimes non-intuitive consequences of this belief. His research specifically suggests that investing in the notion of precarious manhood can reinforce beliefs in traditional gender stereotypes, predict lower psychological well-being for men, and promote willingness by others to excuse men’s sexism. By investigating this obtuse side of gender stereotyping, he may yet develop a more complete understanding of these phenomena.

His second area of research involves exploring how disadvantaged statuses can morally license otherwise immoral behaviors. While being disadvantaged objectively costs an individual or group through penalties such as prejudice or discrimination, disadvantaged status in conflict can also encourage sympathy and support from others. His research interests involve not only other beliefs by observers about these individuals or groups which emerge as a result, but also how people subsequently judge the morality of a disadvantaged entity’s behaviors. Given the rapidly growing media coverage of global and local conflicts, understanding the way people perceive the relative power and status of competing groups can be largely influential in understanding a wide variety of reactions to these groups.

Areas of Expertise (4)

Psychology

Social Psychology

Perceptions on Manhood

Gender Stereotyping

Education (3)

University of South Florida: Ph.D.

University of South Florida: M.A.

University of Central Florida: B.S.

Media Appearances (1)

Being the underdog can make you more attractive: study

Raw Story US  print

2013-03-12

“Despite theory and research suggesting a ubiquitous attraction to winners, we propose that people are, at times, attracted to disadvantage,” Kenneth S. Michniewicz and Joseph A. Vandello of the University of South Florida explained in their study, which was published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. For their study, 82 single male and female college students in the United States viewed a mock job application for a middle-school teacher and were then shown a photograph of the applicant’s face. The female participants viewed the job application of a man, while the male participants viewed the job application of a woman ...

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Articles (3)

People Judge Male Sexism More Leniently When Women Emasculate Men


Social Psychology

2015 While overt sexism has become less acceptable in recent years, sexism frequently goes unchallenged by observers for a variety of reasons. In the present investigation, we propose that people may excuse men’s sexist remarks when the remarks follow a manhood threat caused by a woman. In Study 1, we found that a man’s sexist remark buffered against the emasculating effect of a threat to his masculinity from an ex-girlfriend. In Study 2, we further show that observers excuse a man’s sexist remark following a competitive loss to a woman to the extent that they perceive him as less manly as a result. We replicate this finding in Study 3 while ruling out two competing explanations. We discuss the implication that sexism prevention efforts need to identify and address gender-related contexts where sexism is excused in order for efforts to move toward its prevention.

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Men’s (Mis)Perceptions of the Gender Threatening Consequences of Unemployment


Sex Roles

2014 Given the importance of work to the male gender role, the recent U.S. economic recession (in which men accounted for over 70 % of jobs lost; Boushey 2009) provided a window into the role of employment in men’s identities. We examined men’s and women’s beliefs about the effects of involuntary unemployment on others’ evaluations of them (i.e., metaperceptions). Specifically, participants evaluated targets (other people or themselves) on prescriptive and proscriptive traits linked to gender (see Rudman et al. 2012), and on gender status loss (e.g., whether one is “not a real man”). Using a nationally representative sample of participants from the United States (N = 816) with an equal number of men and women (Ns = 408), we found that, compared with women, men estimated lower appraisals of their own gender status by others after either an imagined or a recalled job loss. However, men’s gendered metaperceptions following job loss were more negative than the evaluations that others actually gave a hypothetical male victim of job loss. Thus, men may believe that others will evaluate them more negatively than others would actually evaluate them following job loss. We discuss these results in light of the current economy and shifting cultural norms regarding employment.

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Gender Dichotomization at the Level of Group Identity: Why Men Use It More than Women


Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

2013 In 5 studies (N = 756), we show that men's relative to women's gender ingroup identities are characterized by greater levels of gender dichotomization, a tendency to distance masculine from feminine traits. We demonstrate further that men's gender dichotomization is motivated, in part, by a need to eschew femininity from their ingroup identity to bolster a precarious gender status. Studies 1-3 establish and replicate the basic effect, and rule out alternative explanations (positivity, projection, status striving) for men's tendency to dichotomize more than women. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrate the motivated nature of gender dichotomization by establishing that men, but not women, dichotomize more strenuously when reminded of the precariousness of their gender status, and report stronger motivation to restore their gender status upon learning that their ingroup is becoming less dichotomized. Across 3 studies, strength of identification with their gender group moderates men's dichotomization tendencies. Discussion considers the implications of these findings for understanding the precarious nature of manhood and identifies practical applications of gender dichotomization in the interpersonal realm.

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