Read Online The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It by Philip G. Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Philip G. Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan
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effects.”
51 percent of guys age 26 through 34 chose “Fulfills sexual needs.”
51 percent of all participants age 35 and older chose “None of the these/Other.”
Survey highlights:
76 percent of women age 18 through 25, and
78 percent of women age 26 through 34, chose “Emotional immaturity or unavailability.”
57 percent of guys age 13 through 17,
59 percent of guys age 18 through 25, and
58 percent of guys age 26 through 34 chose “Lack of interest in pursuing or maintaining a romantic relationship/Social isolation.”
What’s going on?
Whatever landscape a child is exposed to early on, that will be the sort of gauze through which he or she will see all the world afterwards. — Wallace Stegner, historian and novelist
Boys haven’t changed a whole lot in recent years, but the environments in which they socialize, go to school, woo girls and mature have. If we take a closer look at their worlds we can better understand what the data that we just reviewed means. In this section we’ll briefly examine the main situational and systemic factors that influence young guys’ thoughts and behaviors, including cultural changes, medication and illegal drug use, social needs, and what’s happening in schools, within families and among peers.
Bros before hos: Social intensity syndrome
In the film My Fair Lady (based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion ), lead actor Rex Harrison has just achieved his successful transformation of a poor flower shop girl into a stunningly beautiful sophisticated lady, played by Audrey Hepburn. When she becomes distressed that he fails to show her any affection or even recognition for all she has done to so dramatically modify her entire being, and perhaps would like a bit of romance as well, he rudely dismisses her. Harrison then sings a song of lament to his buddy, Pickering. Its title is Why can’t a woman be more like a man? 18 :
Why can’t a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historic’ly fair;
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Well, why can’t a woman be like that?
In doing so, he reveals what we believe is actually a common set of attitudes and values held by most men: a deep preference for male company and bonding over association or even mating with women.
This phenomenon is one that Phil has labeled the social intensity syndrome (SIS). The key dimensions of this new view of essential maleness are outlined as follows:
Men, more than women, are attracted to social settings that involve the ubiquitous presence of a group of other men, over an extended time period.
That attraction is greater the more intense the nature of the relationship, the more exclusive it is of tolerating “outsiders” or those who have not qualified for that group membership, and the more embedded each man is perceived to be within that group.
Examples of such social groups are the military — especially during boot camp and deployment — gangs, contact team sports, fraternities, prisons, some cults and neighborhood bars and pubs.
Men experience a positive arousal — such as cortisol, adrenergic system activation or testosterone increase — when they feel they are part of such all-male social groups.
Men gradually adapt to that level of social intensity contact as an optimally desired personal and social state.
Over time, that degree of social intensity becomes a “set point” of desirable functioning, operating at a nonconscious level of awareness.
Men experience a sense of social isolation and then boredom immediately following their separation from such socially intense male group settings — when having to function in mixed-gender groups or family settings.
Men may experience withdrawal symptoms when removed from such socially intense group settings; symptoms are greater the longer and more intense the prior duration of their group participation has been.
Social intensity syndrome is
51 percent of guys age 26 through 34 chose “Fulfills sexual needs.”
51 percent of all participants age 35 and older chose “None of the these/Other.”
Survey highlights:
76 percent of women age 18 through 25, and
78 percent of women age 26 through 34, chose “Emotional immaturity or unavailability.”
57 percent of guys age 13 through 17,
59 percent of guys age 18 through 25, and
58 percent of guys age 26 through 34 chose “Lack of interest in pursuing or maintaining a romantic relationship/Social isolation.”
What’s going on?
Whatever landscape a child is exposed to early on, that will be the sort of gauze through which he or she will see all the world afterwards. — Wallace Stegner, historian and novelist
Boys haven’t changed a whole lot in recent years, but the environments in which they socialize, go to school, woo girls and mature have. If we take a closer look at their worlds we can better understand what the data that we just reviewed means. In this section we’ll briefly examine the main situational and systemic factors that influence young guys’ thoughts and behaviors, including cultural changes, medication and illegal drug use, social needs, and what’s happening in schools, within families and among peers.
Bros before hos: Social intensity syndrome
In the film My Fair Lady (based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion ), lead actor Rex Harrison has just achieved his successful transformation of a poor flower shop girl into a stunningly beautiful sophisticated lady, played by Audrey Hepburn. When she becomes distressed that he fails to show her any affection or even recognition for all she has done to so dramatically modify her entire being, and perhaps would like a bit of romance as well, he rudely dismisses her. Harrison then sings a song of lament to his buddy, Pickering. Its title is Why can’t a woman be more like a man? 18 :
Why can’t a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historic’ly fair;
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Well, why can’t a woman be like that?
In doing so, he reveals what we believe is actually a common set of attitudes and values held by most men: a deep preference for male company and bonding over association or even mating with women.
This phenomenon is one that Phil has labeled the social intensity syndrome (SIS). The key dimensions of this new view of essential maleness are outlined as follows:
Men, more than women, are attracted to social settings that involve the ubiquitous presence of a group of other men, over an extended time period.
That attraction is greater the more intense the nature of the relationship, the more exclusive it is of tolerating “outsiders” or those who have not qualified for that group membership, and the more embedded each man is perceived to be within that group.
Examples of such social groups are the military — especially during boot camp and deployment — gangs, contact team sports, fraternities, prisons, some cults and neighborhood bars and pubs.
Men experience a positive arousal — such as cortisol, adrenergic system activation or testosterone increase — when they feel they are part of such all-male social groups.
Men gradually adapt to that level of social intensity contact as an optimally desired personal and social state.
Over time, that degree of social intensity becomes a “set point” of desirable functioning, operating at a nonconscious level of awareness.
Men experience a sense of social isolation and then boredom immediately following their separation from such socially intense male group settings — when having to function in mixed-gender groups or family settings.
Men may experience withdrawal symptoms when removed from such socially intense group settings; symptoms are greater the longer and more intense the prior duration of their group participation has been.
Social intensity syndrome is
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