Demoralized by Girlfriend's Success?
I wonder if there are any men who feel more secure and comfortable when they’re not “the man”. There are certainly plenty who will claim not to feel threatened by their mate’s high value, but how can we identify those who are not? Added to my list of biases to fight when I can be bothered to.
Women’s self-esteem was not affected by their male partners’ successes or failures.
Men automatically interpret a partner’s success [being told she scored in the top 12% vs bottom 12%] as their own failure, even when they’re not in direct competition.
They said they felt fine but the test of implicit self-esteem revealed otherwise.
[Men also felt worse about themselves and their relationship when they] thought about a time when their female partner thrived in a situation in which they had failed
Women in these experiments reported feeling better about their relationship when they thought about a time their partner succeeded rather than a time when their partner failed but men did not.
Study: Gender Differences in Implicit Self-Esteem Following a Romantic Partner’s Success or Failure