Homophobia, Iraq War Support and SUV's Mean You Might be a Girly-man (as Arnold might say)?

Doubt a man’s masculinity and he’ll get macho
Men whose male identity is compromised will overcompensate, study finds

NEW YORK - Tell a man that he’s not “man enough” and he may exhibit extremely macho behavior to compensate, new study findings suggest.

Here's the interesting part:

In the fall of 2004, 111 male and female undergraduate students at Cornell completed gender identity surveys, in which they rated themselves on a number of traditionally male and female traits, such as assertiveness, forcefulness and yielding. Willer then gave the students random feedback, although the students believed the feedback was genuinely based on their survey responses.
Some men were told that their survey responses were indicative of a female identity and others were told the opposite. The same was true for women, who were used as the comparison group.

Afterwards, Willer had the students complete a survey that examined their attitudes about certain masculine concepts, including homophobia, purchase of a sport-utility vehicle and support for the Iraq war.

Men whose masculinity was threatened — who were told that their initial survey responses were more feminine than masculine — tended to overcompensate for it in the second survey by expressing more homophobia, a higher level of support for the Iraq war and a greater interest in buying an SUV as opposed to other types of vehicles, Willer reports. These men also reported more feelings of shame, guilt, upset and hostility than did those whose masculinity was not threatened.

I personally think this explains a lot about the Bush Administration and it's overly-vocal supporters.....