Research library

Archer 2000 — Sex differences in aggression between heterosexual partners

Psychological Bulletin · 2000

A meta-analysis of studies of heterosexual partners that found women were slightly more likely than men to use physical aggression, while men were more likely to inflict injury — 62% of those injured by a partner were women.

Blau & Kahn 2017 — The gender wage gap: extent, trends, and explanations

Journal of Economic Literature · 2017

A peer-reviewed review of U.S. wage data from 1980 to 2010 finding that by 2010 differences in education and experience explained little of the remaining gender wage gap, while occupation, industry, and possible discrimination continued to matter.

Bruch & Newman 2018 — Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets

Science Advances · 2018

Analysing messaging data from a large US online dating site, the study found that both men and women tend to contact partners who are on average about 25% more desirable than themselves, producing a steep, market-wide hierarchy of desirability that applies to both sexes.

Buss 1989 — Sex differences in human mate preferences across 37 cultures

Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 1989

A survey of 10,047 people across 37 samples in 33 countries found that women, on average, rated a potential mate's resource-acquisition cues — such as earning capacity and financial prospects — more highly than men did.

Costello et al. 2022 — Levels of well-being among men who are incel

Evolutionary Psychological Science · 2022

A study comparing 151 self-identified incels with 378 non-incel men that found incels reported higher depression, anxiety and loneliness, lower life satisfaction, and a greater tendency toward interpersonal victimhood; the authors describe incels as a newly identified at-risk group for mental-health intervention.

Ging 2019 — Alphas, betas, and incels: masculinities of the manosphere

Men and Masculinities · 2019

Debbie Ging argues that a toxic strain of antifeminism has spread across online networks since Web 2.0, uniting diverse and often-feuding communities under Red Pill "philosophy" — a loose confederacy she calls the manosphere.

Harper & McLanahan 2004 — Father absence and youth incarceration

Journal of Research on Adolescence · 2004

A longitudinal study of adolescent males found that boys in father-absent homes faced higher incarceration risks, but that much of that gap could be attributed to confounding factors such as teen motherhood, low parental education, racial inequalities and poverty; the highest risks were among boys in stepparent families.

Why isn't there more incel violence? (2023)

Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology · 2023

A peer-reviewed paper, co-authored with evolutionary psychologist David Buss, that argues actual violence by self-identified incels is statistically rare despite the misogynistic rhetoric common in incel communities, and frames incel distress partly as an evolutionary mismatch between ancestral and modern mating environments.

Levine et al. 2017 — Temporal trends in sperm count

Human Reproduction Update · 2017

A meta-regression of 185 studies (42,935 men) that found a 52.4% decline in sperm concentration among Western men between 1973 and 2011; the 2022 global update extended the decline to all continents and through 2018.

Ribeiro et al. 2021 — The evolution of the manosphere across the web

ICWSM 2021 · 2021

A network study of 28.8 million posts across 6 forums and 51 subreddits found the manosphere shifting from milder, older communities like pickup artists and men's rights activists toward more extreme ones such as incels and Men Going Their Own Way, with active users migrating in bulk and the newer groups proving more toxic and misogynistic than the older ones.

Rosenfeld 2018 — Who wants the breakup? Gender and breakup in heterosexual couples

Social Networks and the Life Course (Springer) · 2018

Analysing a nationally representative U.S. panel of 2,262 adults, Rosenfeld found that women initiated about 69% of divorces, while non-marital breakups showed no statistically significant gender difference in who ended them.

Speckhard et al. 2021 — Involuntary celibates' grievance over sexual exclusion

Journal of Strategic Security · 2021

A survey of more than 250 self-identified incels active on an online forum found that while most are non-violent and disapprove of violence, a subset who identify as staunch misogynists were likelier to endorse a desire to commit violence and to grow more misogynistic through forum participation.

Stulp et al. 2013 — Are mating preferences for height reflected in actual pairings?

PLOS ONE · 2013

Analysing real UK couples, this study found that while women do tend to pair with taller men, height preferences translate into actual pairings only modestly (assortative mating r = .18), with couples where the man was shorter than the woman, or more than 25 cm taller, occurring less often than chance.

Zentner & Mitura 2012 — Nations' gender gap predicts sex differences in mate preferences

Psychological Science · 2012

Across 10 nations (3,177 people) and a reanalysis of 31 nations (8,953 people), the study found that sex differences in mate preferences — including women's greater emphasis on a partner's resources — shrink as a country becomes more gender-equal.