Date of Award
1-1-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in Psychology
First Advisor
Andrew Hales
Second Advisor
Grace Rivera
Third Advisor
Joseph Wellman
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
People have a fundamental need to belong, but involuntary celibates (i.e., incels)—men who want to be in a romantic relationship and having sex with women but are not despite their attempts to do so and self-identify as an incel—feel they are being deprived of this need. In particular, they blame individual women for rejecting them and society at large for upholding policies that disadvantage men. In turn, they often hold misogynistic beliefs and may even commit violent acts against women to advance their anti-women worldview. Incels claim their beliefs are driven by social exclusion, a painful experience that thwarts people’s basic psychological needs which can lead to extreme (and often antisocial) means to satisfy those needs. The present work empirically examines how exclusion affects inceldom, using the temporal need threat model as a guiding framework to examine exclusion in this hard-to-reach population, studying the frequency of exclusion in incels and exclusion as an antecedent and consequence of inceldom. Study 1 explores incels’ real-world experiences of exclusion and finds that, in general, incels report greater exclusion than non-incels and greater exclusion is associated with greater misogyny and (in incels) identification as an incel. Study 2 investigates if exclusion leads to inceldom and finds that a single brief instance of exclusion does not increase propensity toward inceldom but being included decreases male supremacist beliefs and perception of incel-related exclusion compared to baseline. Finally, Study 3 tests if inceldom leads to further exclusion and finds that people are more willing to exclude and less willing to date/befriend men with incel beliefs than men with average beliefs and also men with incel beliefs and explicitly labeled an incel compared to those with just incel beliefs but no label. Together, these results suggest that incels perceive themselves to be highly excluded, which might result from people being more willing to exclude them, but a single instance of exclusion is not enough to lead to a propensity toward inceldom, whereas inclusion appears to reduce the propensity.
Recommended Citation
Wood, Natasha, "Involuntary Celibates and Social Exclusion" (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3031.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/3031
