Hate crimes against LGBTIQ* individuals, particularly those targeting transgender people, have risen dramatically in recent years, emphasizing the need for innovative anti-prejudice interventions. Parasocial contact, a mediated form of intergroup contact, has shown promise in fostering empathy, reducing stereotypes, and improving intergroup attitudes. Contributing to this line of research, this study investigates the effectiveness of parasocial contact via social media in reducing transphobia and social distance towards Trans individuals.

The study adopts a mixed-design approach, incorporating a between-subjects factor (type of contact) and a within-subjects factor (time). Participants are randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) direct parasocial contact, in which a transgender individual directly addresses the viewer in a video; (2) vicarious parasocial contact, where the same transgender individual interacts with a cisgender interviewer in a video; and (3) a text-based intervention about the everyday life of transgender individuals. The format and style of the brief videos and texts correspond to typical social media content in the style of a popular platform (Instagram). Data is collected over four measurement points spanning 15 days, allowing for an exploration of both immediate and longitudinal effects.

As a theoretical contribution, the study further examines three mediators—empathy, perceived individuality of the outgroup, and entertainment value—hypothesized to explain different levels of effectiveness for the three interventions. Attitudes (as our interventions’ outcome) are measured using scales for transphobia and social distance, while control variables include prior interpersonal contact with transgender individuals and social desirability.

This research aims to advance the current theoretical understanding of parasocial contact as a means to reduce prejudice while also providing actionable insights into the design of mediated interventions targeting transphobia. By integrating longitudinal methods and nuanced mediation analyses, the study addresses key gaps in the existing literature on mediated intergroup contact.

Theoretical Background

According to Precarious Manhood Theory, manhood is seen as an elusive and tenuous social status. Therefore, men are expected to actively maintain their reputation as ‘real men’. Masculinity threat refers to the psychological stress or anxiety men may experience when they perceive their masculinity is being challenged or undermined. This can lead to behaviors aimed at reasserting their masculinity, such as anger or demonstrations of social dominance. While previous research has shown that female-disparaging comedy can affect women by inducing Social Identity Threat, and thus lead to decreased cognitive performance and domain identification, there is a lack of research on the implications of male-disparaging comedy for men. In this research, we combine theory and research on social identity and masculinity threat with findings from humor research.

Research Question

We argue that male-disparaging comedy that questions the masculinity of today’s men may elicit masculinity threat. We hypothesize that the reception of male-disparaging comedy (vs. non-disparaging comedy) will lead to increased anger and a stronger preference for traditional gender roles among male participants. Additionally, we explored whether it may lead to different evaluations of jokes about other social groups, such as women and gay men.

Methods

For this online experiment, we recruited a total of 203 participants who self-identified as male. They were randomly assigned to receive male-disparaging or non-disparaging comedy, both delivered by the popular German comedienne Carolin Kebekus. Afterwards, they completed scales to report on their emotional status (including anger) and their endorsement of traditional gender roles. Additionally, they were asked to rate the funniness of jokes and conundrums that referred to different groups. Perceived funniness of the comedy and political ideology were included as potential moderators. We also controlled for precarious manhood beliefs.

Feminists continue to call for changes in linguistic gender representations based on various arguments. Communicators should enhance visibility of non-male genders by means of gender-fair language (GFL), and GFL will have desirable effects on how message receivers will comprehend person-related information so that their mental representation of non-male individuals will be de-biased (Szesny et al., 2016).

The present work replicated an early experiment (Blake & Klimmt, 2010) to see whether the positive effect of GFL in news reports on mental inclusion of non-male persons during audience comprehension (situation models) persists and how contemporary audiences evaluate GFL use in news. Since the time of the original study, various dynamics may have affected audience reactions to GFL: Increasing normality of GFL in (public) communication, increased hostility towards GFL by conservatives, and calls to go beyond promoting females‘ linguistic visibility by addressing non-binary genders (e.g., by using asterisks).

The news article used in the original study (a local report on a fire in a fitness gym) served as stimulus. Experimental manipulation of GFL was also identical (generic masculine vs. use of male and female forms vs. use of novel dual-gender markers). However, instead of the dual-gender marker (e.g., BesucherInnen), the asterisk served to mark multi-gender referrals (Besucher*innen). The percentage of females and non-binary persons that readers estimated to have been involved in the reported incident served as dependent variable, as well as evaluation of text comprehensibility and aesthetics, all obtained from the original study with minimal modifications.

Students from three German universities (N = 157) completed the procedure during class hours on their mobile devices. Analysis will focus on whether different types of gender representation in news language (still) evoke varying cognitive inclusion of non-male individuals in news readers and whether students evaluate GFL more positive today than traditional non-GFL.

Problematic pornography use (PPU) is marked by a persistent and uncontrollable engagement with pornography, leading to distress and impaired functioning. Currently, a comprehensive understanding of PPU is still lacking, resulting in limited official recognition and a shortage of evidence-based treatments. As a result, individuals suffering from PPU often turn to self-help fora, which primarily emphasize reducing pornography consumption frequency as a solution. However, emerging research suggests that frequency may not be the central issue in PPU, prompting a need to explore other contributing factors. In addition, existing research on PPU has almost solely focused on men. Consequently, our understanding of contributing factors for PPU among women is highly limited. The aim of this study, therefore, was to investigate contributing factors for PPU among both women and men. Specifically, we focused on: addiction (relapse, withdrawal, tolerance, salience, mood modification, conflict), quantity of pornography use (frequency, session length), affect (shame, guilt), and context factors (secrecy, moral incongruence). We recruited an online sample of 1,048 participants (520 women, 387 men) aged 16 to 71 years (M = 25.01, SD = 7.49) through various Reddit fora. Using novel Bayesian graphical modeling we examined the interrelationships among these factors, and we particularly focused on the role of pornography use frequency and the differences between women and men. This approach provides evidence for the presence and absence of relationships between factors and allows us to identify differences and similarities in the interrelationships of PPU factors between women and men. By investigating how PPU factors interrelate and identifying its central factors, this study advances our scientific understanding of PPU, among both women and men, and might provide first insights into potential avenues for evidence-based treatments.