6 ms·

Incels need more mental health help, have "fundamental thinking errors"

57 points by nabla9 3y ago

AproposTomato 3y ago
[dead]
kelseyfrog 3y ago
What were the "thinking errors"?
- giantg2 3y ago
  Merely the difference in how they estimated attributes in relation to the non-incels, presumably measured against answers from other surveys of women's preferences.
Veuxdo 3y ago
Is "misconceptions" not the word we're looking for? "Thinking errors" is positively Orwellian.
- lazide 3y ago
  Just wait until you read the comments calling for reprogramming them, heh.
  - lazide 3y ago
    To reply to myself - the really hilarious bit about all this, is the incels seem to be folks stuck half way between ‘blue pill’ (an actually good guy) and redpill (‘bad boys’). And in some ways, just like in the original matrix, the blue pill does result in an easier steak dinner if you play your cards right (also not easy to actually do), and the red pill will get you relentlessly hunted and destroyed unless you’re pretty good at a game no one ‘in the system’ prepared you for or could even safely acknowledge ever existed. So for incels, near as I can tell the issue isn’t so much one position or another that they are taking. But that the ‘pill’ is stuck and so they can’t actually be either one in reality. Which makes a lot of sense if part of them knows they’ll be immediately massacred if they ‘took the pill’ because they don’t have the strength, knowledge, or support to handle it, but also have seen enough behind the societal ‘curtain’ and have suffered enough problems from normal society and interactions that they can’t just go and eat their steak like cypher either. Maladaptive Conditioning and PTSD is a bitch. And so that causes cognitive dissonance, pain, and all the other issues - including causing them to lash out at the thing triggering all these difficult feelings of inferiority, fear, confusion, etc. aka women
- PaulAJ 3y ago
  I think I see what they mean. "Misconception" means something where you can point out "no, that's incorrect". But these people have more than just an error in their knowledge, they are fundamentally misconstruing the world and how it works.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    I would love to see the part of the study that says this and how they controlled for various factors. Are rhe baselines just other studies built on surveys? Self perception is terribly inaccurate much of the time, and we all know people put more emphasis on the things they don't have than the ones they already do.
- hx8 3y ago
  Yes. It's an academic and a journalist using sensational language to attract attention. The whole article is largely salacious while being just high-brow enough for BBC News.
- jwagenet 3y ago
  My gut says “fundamental thinking errors” is a Britishism without the connotations you’re inferring. I often find odd or blunt turn of phrase not out of place in the context of British media.
  - throwaway89201 3y ago
    Yes. Hence Orwellian, and not just totalitarian [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langu...
- foogazi 3y ago
  Wonder if it’s “Thinking errors” in the CBT sense ? also called cognitive distortions: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion Basically we want our perception of the world to match reality as much as possible. If it gets distorted our actions are now not grounded on reality
tiahura 3y ago
“People are saying that the reason that incels struggle to find relationships and sex is because their standards are too high, and what we were able to demonstrate here is, compared to our group of men that weren't incel, actually their minimum mate preferences were a lot lower. "At least that's what they told us anyway." “Once you overestimate in your mind the importance of physical attractiveness to women, and underestimate the influence of kindness, you start looking for evidence that confirms that world view," he said.” —— Do we have strong evidence that women value kindness over attractiveness, beyond that's what they told us anyway? Haven’t there been studies, of all sorts of species, backed by reasonable suppositions about evolutionary pressures, that kindness might not be what young fertile females are looking for in a mate?
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  Somehow, I doubt that the definition of “kind” provided by incels is the same as what women think is “kind.”
  - more_corn 3y ago
    Yeah, nice-guy syndrome.
- oxfordmale 3y ago
  On dating websites women mostly target the top 10% in terms of looks and attractiveness. That suggests kindness isn't high on their wishlist. However, getting yourself a dog and going for morning runs does get you approached by eligible women, so I guess it depends on the social context.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    > However, getting yourself a dog and going morning runs does get you approached by eligible women, so I guess it depends on the social context. Women want men who are reliable, having a dog and exercising regularly signals reliability. This has nothing to do with kindness. The biggest problem with incels is that they struggle with their life in general. Toxic guys with a well put together life doesn't have issues getting women, as you say just exercise regularly and keep a dog and have other such signals and women will come to you.
fwipsy 3y ago
I'm not sure I would refer to this as "thinking errors." My model is that incels are members of an extremist ideology. They have their own core dissatisfaction, but the ideas are shared and reinforced in the community. Like other extremist ideologies, the best approach is to deprogram and reintegrate them if possible, by helping them to address that core dissatisfaction.
- sixo 3y ago
  It is also true that they have errant beliefs. You're talking about the reason they have these beliefs, which is relevant too, but at some level they have to change their minds.
- nabla9 3y ago
  >My model is that incels are members of an extremist ideology Contrast your model to what the article says about this. > the study showed incels were ____, more ______ and more politically ________ than previously reported.
  - Detrytus 3y ago
    "Extremist" does not imply "far-right", there are "far-left" extremists as well.
    - bitwize 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - richbell 3y ago
        Drew DeVault isn't exactly known for his thoughtful and well-reasoned takes.
      - at_a_remove 3y ago
ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
The secret is out on male/female dynamics. Without the internet, "incel theories" about women were hidden and not generally disseminated across the population. A perfect storm of wide spread free information and dating apps have changed fundamental understandings of society by common people. The only chance at containing this widespread ideology is through shaming and claims of mental illness. In some sense, "slut shaming" which has somewhat disappeared, has been replaced with "incel shaming". They are diametrically opposed social strategies.
- gred 3y ago
  > A perfect storm of wide spread free information and dating apps [...] Possibly true, but at the very least you are missing a key ingredient in the loosening of sexual mores over the past 60 years. A world with today's technology but the sexual conventions of the 1950's might apply those efficiencies towards the creation of happy marriages, rather than the creation of... whatever we call the webs that we have today.
  - voidwtf 3y ago
    Can you define “the sexual conventions of the 1950’s”? I’m unsure of the implication here.
    - gred 3y ago
      This seems self-evident to me, but here you go: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11011072_Changes_over_time_in_teenage_sexual_relationships_Comparing_the_high_school_class_of_1950_1975_and_2000 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11011072_Changes_ov...
      - voidwtf 3y ago
        So decreased sexual repression, more open communication about sex, and less likely to wait til marriage to have sex. Those all sound like positive things to me. How are you correlating marriage success to these changes? If anything I would think those who decide to marry would be less likely to encounter sexual compatibility issues if they were able to openly discuss their needs with one another. Statistics appear to show that these changes may be leading to lower divorce rates, it also appears that divorce rates are highest among those from previous generations. The rates still seem highest among those who married early in life, but less people are marrying early now, which seems to be helping.
javajosh 3y ago
If you're online enough to identify yourself as an incel you're too online. If most of what you know about women comes from what they post on Instagram and Twitter and whatever, then you really know nothing about women or men or their relationships. You've only ever been exposed to the toxic public discourse around men and women and not to men and women themselves.
- navjack27 3y ago
  Exactly this. Well said
- richbell 3y ago
  This seems quite condescending; I'm not sure if that's your intent. I've met people who have "taken refuge" in such communities precisely because of real life interactions. E.g., being bullied continuously through school, being rejected or laughed at by women. Being online obviously exacerbates the issue (be it radical forums, social media, online dating), but I think saying people only believe X because they're online misses the mark.
  - Pigalowda 3y ago
    They’re not victims.
    - richbell 3y ago
      What exactly are you trying to say here?
    - nickthegreek 3y ago
      As with most things in life, absolutes do no favors. Some are victims, and some are probably just assholes. Wholesale discounting their experiences and feelings is no way to help them through their issues, made up or not.
      - voidwtf 3y ago
        So does generalizing an entire sex based off a handful of anecdotal experiences. I’ll never condone bullying, but I also teach my children not to make themselves a target. Rejection happens sometimes, if it keeps happening maybe we need to do some self-assessment. Joining an echo chamber of people who blame society or an entire genders autonomy for their own personal issue is not healthy.
kaetemi 3y ago
And then every other movie where the boy tries to get the girl teaches men that they have to "trick" women into liking them through complicated schemes of pretend personalities.
- 1shooner 3y ago
  How common is this trope anymore, though? I feel like it's been passe for at least 10 years, and maybe longer.
  - kaetemi 3y ago
    No idea, but the current eligible generations definitely grew up with that.
- corethree 3y ago
  If you ever been married you'll know an aspect of this is true. You can't be fully honest and open with your partner. A simple example demonstrates the case. It's unlikely for your partner to be your top choice. It's just a statistical given... But you can never reveal that. That's where the dishonesty and "pretend" comes in. And this is just one example of many. There is always going to be an aspect of "pretend" in every relationship. Sure Incels are extreme in one end of the spectrum. But the status quo is also a bit extreme in the sense that its description of relationships is a little too idealistic.
  - 1shooner 3y ago
    >It's unlikely for your partner to be your top choice. It's just a statistical given... But you can never reveal that. Another possibility is to have a shared understanding of your relationship that isn't based on this deception/omission/pretense. I'd say that's the norm in stable long-term relationships, from those that I know.
    - corethree 3y ago
      You know of couples who talk about how their partners aren't their first choice openly or how they think other people are more attractive? If it exists it's incredibly rare.
dist-epoch 3y ago
They would never write an article saying "communists have fundamental thinking errors". Also, incels are always male and cis, by definition. You would be cancelled if you dared call a non-male non-cis person person an incel.
- offtrail 3y ago
  "[whoever you don't agree with] have fundamental thinking errors."
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    That certainly seems to be the state of a particular type of university academia in the last 5-10 years.
- eapressoandcats 3y ago
  Maybe they wouldn’t, but generally anyone with strict adherence to an ideology has fundamental thinking errors where they reject evidence inconsistent with the ideology. Communists white washing the badness of Che Guevara, Mao, and even Lenin/Stalin comes to mind.
giantg2 3y ago
"At least that's what they told us anyway." It would have been nice to have a link to the study. They talk about confirmation bias on the incel side, but nothing about the biases on the non-incel or women's side. I mean, really how are you writing off the incels as thinking errors when the baseline (the other men and women) is likely to rely on self-reporting too. Perhaps this study is really about how people underestimate the things they already have (I'd like to know how the study controlled for this).
- ThrowawayR2 3y ago
  Not to pick on the parent poster personally, since I see this type of comment a lot, but the principal investigator's name, his co-author, and the parent institution name are right there in the article. An academic almost always maintains a list of publications with links to where they are published and often, though not always, they are freely viewable. JFGI. Of the two publications by the author that have "incel" in the title, it's probably this one: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2023.2248096 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2023.2...
  - Jensson 3y ago
    From that abstract: > Furthermore, incels underestimated women’s overall minimum mate preference standards Is it saying that things are actually worse than incels believe? Womens demands are actually higher than incels thinks and therefore things are even more hopeless for the incels than they currently think?
    - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
      That's what I am reading as well. So instead of incels being woman haters, they were right all along? It is certainly having "They hated him, because he told them truth" vibes.
      - jwagenet 3y ago
        Or maybe women have reasonable standards that men think they are entitled not to meet.
jwie 3y ago
[flagged]
- thriftwy 3y ago
  So what will happen then?
karpatic 3y ago
[flagged]
- hx8 3y ago
  I think it's important to do this kind of research. I know a lot of people mash on the soft sciences, and many of the objections are valid. Here are some points in its defense. 1. Common Sense is often wrong. Having empirical evidence tests common sense and can strength or weaken individual conclusions of common sense. 2. It provides a strong voice against the misconception. This can be useful in fighting the misconception. 3. It can put quantities to trends we are seeing. 4. It's pretty cheap as far as scientific research goes. The fundamental action is often filling out a paper survey, or at the most expensive having graduate students interview subjects and writing about it.
  - ferbivore 3y ago
    These points are only valid if the research isn’t bogus nonsense. Social science has a very poor track record in that regard, I suspect because bogus nonsense gets a lot of clicks.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- giantg2 3y ago
  And what the article doesn't say which the study does, is that the non-incel group also had these estimation errors but to a slightly lesser degree. (Or perhaps the self-reported baseline data frome the female survey participants had bias too).
  - flenserboy 3y ago
    It would be interesting to see if expressed preferences could be set against actual choices made in dating. People lie, very often to themselves, about what they actually want.
    - 3y ago
Joeboy 3y ago
Pharmacological solution to a social problem.
- simmerup 3y ago
  Drug them into submission
go13 3y ago
[flagged]
layer8 3y ago
> A study at Swansea University found incels - or involuntary celibates - overestimated physical attractiveness and finances, while underestimating kindness, humour and loyalty. If incels are less attractive and less well-off than the average (I don’t know if they are, but it seems plausible), then they will be more affected by women’s financial and attractiveness preferences than the average, which in turn will inform their views. So the “thinking error” might be based on actual experience.
- cedws 3y ago
  Attractiveness is the #1 predictor of success on dating apps which as of 2024 account for a major slice of dating. Saying "dating apps aren't real life" makes no sense because dating apps are real life, and meeting people in person is becoming less and less common. You can be the most kind and funny person in the world, but if you don't get matches on dating apps, you're going to have a hard time.
  - layer8 3y ago
    The article isn’t saying that attractiveness and financials aren’t important, but that incels are overestimating them, presumably relative to their real/average importance. My point in the GP post is that they may not actually be overestimating them relative to their personal experience.
    - cedws 3y ago
      I see, thanks. I think it is hard to overestimate the importance of looks if they're the barrier to you simply getting started. But this is the realm of social sciences, so I guess none of this research is concrete anyway.
    - giantg2 3y ago
      "presumably relative to their real/average importance." It's relative to what the female participants self reported as being important. "My point in the GP post is that they may not actually be overestimating them relative to their personal experience." Agreed. "The article isn’t saying that attractiveness and financials aren’t important, but that incels are overestimating them," The actual study shows both incel and non-incel groups had similar estimation "errors" but with incels being slightly to somewhat farther from the baseline.
alimw 3y ago
Is the error to assume that any logic at all might apply to this matter? "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
JieJie 3y ago
Natalie Wynn's video^0 on incels always struck me as uniquely useful, not just for exploring their genesis and radicalization, but in generating empathy for those who suffer from it. 0: https://youtu.be/fD2briZ6fB0 https://youtu.be/fD2briZ6fB0
pylua 3y ago
I think in general men have to get use to rejection and it’s a tough pill to swallow. There seems to be by far more rejection than acceptance for a lot of young men, and it can be very difficult to persevere after being beaten down. I wish this would be researched more.
- joshschreuder 3y ago
  I think this probably gets a lot worse before it gets better. I'm not in the space myself but am close with a number of primary/elementary educators and from my perspective it appears as though in Western/developed countries at least there has been a massive shift away from teaching rejection and "life is unfair" philosophy and moving towards "everyone's a winner" type stuff. And education has a perverse incentive to just promote kids that are floundering instead of failing/holding them back and upsetting parents / making more work for the already underpaid and overworked teachers. We're only just recently trying to course correct for this by teaching resilience training, because of course these kids will get to the "real world" of tertiary education / careers and just completely fall apart the first time things don't work out exactly as they planned. I would be curious to see the age ranges of self reported incels and whether this correlates to a modern generation raised like this.
  - pylua 3y ago
    I think the schools unfortunately are not equipped to do resilience training — they are only able to pacify failures.
numbers_guy 3y ago
1. Take a look around you. If there are no women in the room, you're in the wrong room. Location matters. 2. Take a look around you. Feel the vibe. If you are not vibing with the people in the room, you're in the wrong room. How you come across to others matters. You don't want to be the loser in the room. If you do 1. and 2. then it's just a matter of trying and failing until someone sticks around. 3. As a man you will always have to lead. That's expected of men. You have to ask her out. You have to advance the relationship forward. 4. Once you get a girl interested, threat her well, but don't put her on a pedestal. She wants to look up to you, not the other way round. ...things I wish I realized a long time ago
corethree 3y ago
I don't like the word incel and I've been labeled as that by people for simply having unconventional opinions which is ironic given the fact that I'm married. Incels are real and they are extremist. But in the dating game and in the world of relationships things are fundamentally unequal. Women have many many advantages and they have things a lot easier in many cases. This is real and even hinting at this gets you labeled as an incel. The current status quo of what people assume to be true as implied in the article is wrong. Incels have noticed this and taken it to the extreme. The problem is most people really buy into this idealistic narrative of relationships and these descriptions that are flat out wrong. Here's a common example and this will actually trigger most people because it's so unconventional: When it comes to relationships men are the more romantic and emotional sex while women are the more logical and practical sex. Think about it. Men do all these irrational things that are "romantic" in the form of gifts and tribute and they offer all this to a woman almost unconditionally. The women on the other hand makes a practical choice. She chooses the man based off a multitude of attributes including income which is highly, highly practical and logical. For men, did the income of a woman ever matter? Does her job even really matter? It's illogical not to factor that in as it influenced the relationship. But as all men know, income and occupation and even status isn't even part of the criteria. Men are illogical when it comes to relationships. Also think about it. If a man loses his job or becomes in capable of supporting a family. What does a woman with options do? She will leave. Her relationship with a man is conditioned on practicality. If It is practical for her to leave most women will. What if a woman becomes unemployed and unable to support the family? No problem there. Because the man loves her romantically, not practically. Any man reading this will know what I'm saying is true. But this goes against the modern narrative. You can get attacked and labeled for saying such a thing. It sounds bad but it is what it is. It's just the way things are. Overall what I'm trying to say here is that the word incel has been weaponized and over used. Incels do exist. But the worst thing that's happening here is not the concept of an incel. The status quo of what most men and women understand about male or female behavior is just fundamentally wrong and way too idealistic. There are dark truths here that we don't want to face and a lot of people who throw around the word "incel" are such people who are afraid. This is reality: Men and women are not equal. They are different physically, mentally, intellectually, emotionally and psychologically and many of these differences are biological in nature. This unequality is not fair and balanced either... there's no black magic that says for every male weakness there's a female strength and counterpart to make up for it or vice versa. There are real reasons why there are more men in tech than women other than "oppression" and If you can't accept this and if you think this is an "incel" mentality, then I'm sorry to say you're not in touch with reality.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
antisthenes 3y ago
Another content-free article for an irrelevant university that blames the victim, instead of proposing a long-term solution. Far-reaching conclusions based on self-reported surveys are worth less than nothing. It's a great tool to be used as propaganda for either side, but it doesn't really solve the underlying mental health issues of vulnerable demographics.
h2odragon 3y ago
Goats are cheap, pliant, and edible.

57 points by nabla9 3y ago

AproposTomato 3y ago

[dead]

kelseyfrog 3y ago

What were the "thinking errors"?

giantg2 3y ago
Merely the difference in how they estimated attributes in relation to the non-incels, presumably measured against answers from other surveys of women's preferences.

Veuxdo 3y ago

Is "misconceptions" not the word we're looking for? "Thinking errors" is positively Orwellian.

lazide 3y ago
Just wait until you read the comments calling for reprogramming them, heh.
- lazide 3y ago
  To reply to myself - the really hilarious bit about all this, is the incels seem to be folks stuck half way between ‘blue pill’ (an actually good guy) and redpill (‘bad boys’). And in some ways, just like in the original matrix, the blue pill does result in an easier steak dinner if you play your cards right (also not easy to actually do), and the red pill will get you relentlessly hunted and destroyed unless you’re pretty good at a game no one ‘in the system’ prepared you for or could even safely acknowledge ever existed. So for incels, near as I can tell the issue isn’t so much one position or another that they are taking. But that the ‘pill’ is stuck and so they can’t actually be either one in reality. Which makes a lot of sense if part of them knows they’ll be immediately massacred if they ‘took the pill’ because they don’t have the strength, knowledge, or support to handle it, but also have seen enough behind the societal ‘curtain’ and have suffered enough problems from normal society and interactions that they can’t just go and eat their steak like cypher either. Maladaptive Conditioning and PTSD is a bitch. And so that causes cognitive dissonance, pain, and all the other issues - including causing them to lash out at the thing triggering all these difficult feelings of inferiority, fear, confusion, etc. aka women
PaulAJ 3y ago
I think I see what they mean. "Misconception" means something where you can point out "no, that's incorrect". But these people have more than just an error in their knowledge, they are fundamentally misconstruing the world and how it works.
- giantg2 3y ago
  I would love to see the part of the study that says this and how they controlled for various factors. Are rhe baselines just other studies built on surveys? Self perception is terribly inaccurate much of the time, and we all know people put more emphasis on the things they don't have than the ones they already do.
hx8 3y ago
Yes. It's an academic and a journalist using sensational language to attract attention. The whole article is largely salacious while being just high-brow enough for BBC News.
jwagenet 3y ago
My gut says “fundamental thinking errors” is a Britishism without the connotations you’re inferring. I often find odd or blunt turn of phrase not out of place in the context of British media.
- throwaway89201 3y ago
  Yes. Hence Orwellian, and not just totalitarian [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langu...
foogazi 3y ago
Wonder if it’s “Thinking errors” in the CBT sense ? also called cognitive distortions: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion Basically we want our perception of the world to match reality as much as possible. If it gets distorted our actions are now not grounded on reality

tiahura 3y ago

“People are saying that the reason that incels struggle to find relationships and sex is because their standards are too high, and what we were able to demonstrate here is, compared to our group of men that weren't incel, actually their minimum mate preferences were a lot lower. "At least that's what they told us anyway." “Once you overestimate in your mind the importance of physical attractiveness to women, and underestimate the influence of kindness, you start looking for evidence that confirms that world view," he said.” —— Do we have strong evidence that women value kindness over attractiveness, beyond that's what they told us anyway? Haven’t there been studies, of all sorts of species, backed by reasonable suppositions about evolutionary pressures, that kindness might not be what young fertile females are looking for in a mate?

bobthepanda 3y ago
Somehow, I doubt that the definition of “kind” provided by incels is the same as what women think is “kind.”
- more_corn 3y ago
  Yeah, nice-guy syndrome.
oxfordmale 3y ago
On dating websites women mostly target the top 10% in terms of looks and attractiveness. That suggests kindness isn't high on their wishlist. However, getting yourself a dog and going for morning runs does get you approached by eligible women, so I guess it depends on the social context.
- Jensson 3y ago
  > However, getting yourself a dog and going morning runs does get you approached by eligible women, so I guess it depends on the social context. Women want men who are reliable, having a dog and exercising regularly signals reliability. This has nothing to do with kindness. The biggest problem with incels is that they struggle with their life in general. Toxic guys with a well put together life doesn't have issues getting women, as you say just exercise regularly and keep a dog and have other such signals and women will come to you.

fwipsy 3y ago

I'm not sure I would refer to this as "thinking errors." My model is that incels are members of an extremist ideology. They have their own core dissatisfaction, but the ideas are shared and reinforced in the community. Like other extremist ideologies, the best approach is to deprogram and reintegrate them if possible, by helping them to address that core dissatisfaction.

sixo 3y ago
It is also true that they have errant beliefs. You're talking about the reason they have these beliefs, which is relevant too, but at some level they have to change their minds.
nabla9 3y ago
>My model is that incels are members of an extremist ideology Contrast your model to what the article says about this. > the study showed incels were ____, more ______ and more politically ________ than previously reported.
- Detrytus 3y ago
  "Extremist" does not imply "far-right", there are "far-left" extremists as well.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - richbell 3y ago
      Drew DeVault isn't exactly known for his thoughtful and well-reasoned takes.
    - at_a_remove 3y ago

ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago

The secret is out on male/female dynamics. Without the internet, "incel theories" about women were hidden and not generally disseminated across the population. A perfect storm of wide spread free information and dating apps have changed fundamental understandings of society by common people. The only chance at containing this widespread ideology is through shaming and claims of mental illness. In some sense, "slut shaming" which has somewhat disappeared, has been replaced with "incel shaming". They are diametrically opposed social strategies.

gred 3y ago
> A perfect storm of wide spread free information and dating apps [...] Possibly true, but at the very least you are missing a key ingredient in the loosening of sexual mores over the past 60 years. A world with today's technology but the sexual conventions of the 1950's might apply those efficiencies towards the creation of happy marriages, rather than the creation of... whatever we call the webs that we have today.
- voidwtf 3y ago
  Can you define “the sexual conventions of the 1950’s”? I’m unsure of the implication here.
  - gred 3y ago
    This seems self-evident to me, but here you go: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11011072_Changes_over_time_in_teenage_sexual_relationships_Comparing_the_high_school_class_of_1950_1975_and_2000 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11011072_Changes_ov...
    - voidwtf 3y ago
      So decreased sexual repression, more open communication about sex, and less likely to wait til marriage to have sex. Those all sound like positive things to me. How are you correlating marriage success to these changes? If anything I would think those who decide to marry would be less likely to encounter sexual compatibility issues if they were able to openly discuss their needs with one another. Statistics appear to show that these changes may be leading to lower divorce rates, it also appears that divorce rates are highest among those from previous generations. The rates still seem highest among those who married early in life, but less people are marrying early now, which seems to be helping.

javajosh 3y ago

If you're online enough to identify yourself as an incel you're too online. If most of what you know about women comes from what they post on Instagram and Twitter and whatever, then you really know nothing about women or men or their relationships. You've only ever been exposed to the toxic public discourse around men and women and not to men and women themselves.

navjack27 3y ago
Exactly this. Well said
richbell 3y ago
This seems quite condescending; I'm not sure if that's your intent. I've met people who have "taken refuge" in such communities precisely because of real life interactions. E.g., being bullied continuously through school, being rejected or laughed at by women. Being online obviously exacerbates the issue (be it radical forums, social media, online dating), but I think saying people only believe X because they're online misses the mark.
- Pigalowda 3y ago
  They’re not victims.
  - richbell 3y ago
    What exactly are you trying to say here?
  - nickthegreek 3y ago
    As with most things in life, absolutes do no favors. Some are victims, and some are probably just assholes. Wholesale discounting their experiences and feelings is no way to help them through their issues, made up or not.
    - voidwtf 3y ago
      So does generalizing an entire sex based off a handful of anecdotal experiences. I’ll never condone bullying, but I also teach my children not to make themselves a target. Rejection happens sometimes, if it keeps happening maybe we need to do some self-assessment. Joining an echo chamber of people who blame society or an entire genders autonomy for their own personal issue is not healthy.

kaetemi 3y ago

And then every other movie where the boy tries to get the girl teaches men that they have to "trick" women into liking them through complicated schemes of pretend personalities.

1shooner 3y ago
How common is this trope anymore, though? I feel like it's been passe for at least 10 years, and maybe longer.
- kaetemi 3y ago
  No idea, but the current eligible generations definitely grew up with that.
corethree 3y ago
If you ever been married you'll know an aspect of this is true. You can't be fully honest and open with your partner. A simple example demonstrates the case. It's unlikely for your partner to be your top choice. It's just a statistical given... But you can never reveal that. That's where the dishonesty and "pretend" comes in. And this is just one example of many. There is always going to be an aspect of "pretend" in every relationship. Sure Incels are extreme in one end of the spectrum. But the status quo is also a bit extreme in the sense that its description of relationships is a little too idealistic.
- 1shooner 3y ago
  >It's unlikely for your partner to be your top choice. It's just a statistical given... But you can never reveal that. Another possibility is to have a shared understanding of your relationship that isn't based on this deception/omission/pretense. I'd say that's the norm in stable long-term relationships, from those that I know.
  - corethree 3y ago
    You know of couples who talk about how their partners aren't their first choice openly or how they think other people are more attractive? If it exists it's incredibly rare.

dist-epoch 3y ago

They would never write an article saying "communists have fundamental thinking errors". Also, incels are always male and cis, by definition. You would be cancelled if you dared call a non-male non-cis person person an incel.

offtrail 3y ago
"[whoever you don't agree with] have fundamental thinking errors."
- antisthenes 3y ago
  That certainly seems to be the state of a particular type of university academia in the last 5-10 years.
eapressoandcats 3y ago
Maybe they wouldn’t, but generally anyone with strict adherence to an ideology has fundamental thinking errors where they reject evidence inconsistent with the ideology. Communists white washing the badness of Che Guevara, Mao, and even Lenin/Stalin comes to mind.

giantg2 3y ago

"At least that's what they told us anyway." It would have been nice to have a link to the study. They talk about confirmation bias on the incel side, but nothing about the biases on the non-incel or women's side. I mean, really how are you writing off the incels as thinking errors when the baseline (the other men and women) is likely to rely on self-reporting too. Perhaps this study is really about how people underestimate the things they already have (I'd like to know how the study controlled for this).

ThrowawayR2 3y ago
Not to pick on the parent poster personally, since I see this type of comment a lot, but the principal investigator's name, his co-author, and the parent institution name are right there in the article. An academic almost always maintains a list of publications with links to where they are published and often, though not always, they are freely viewable. JFGI. Of the two publications by the author that have "incel" in the title, it's probably this one: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2023.2248096 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2023.2...
- Jensson 3y ago
  From that abstract: > Furthermore, incels underestimated women’s overall minimum mate preference standards Is it saying that things are actually worse than incels believe? Womens demands are actually higher than incels thinks and therefore things are even more hopeless for the incels than they currently think?
  - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
    That's what I am reading as well. So instead of incels being woman haters, they were right all along? It is certainly having "They hated him, because he told them truth" vibes.
    - jwagenet 3y ago
      Or maybe women have reasonable standards that men think they are entitled not to meet.

jwie 3y ago

[flagged]

thriftwy 3y ago
So what will happen then?

karpatic 3y ago

[flagged]

hx8 3y ago
I think it's important to do this kind of research. I know a lot of people mash on the soft sciences, and many of the objections are valid. Here are some points in its defense. 1. Common Sense is often wrong. Having empirical evidence tests common sense and can strength or weaken individual conclusions of common sense. 2. It provides a strong voice against the misconception. This can be useful in fighting the misconception. 3. It can put quantities to trends we are seeing. 4. It's pretty cheap as far as scientific research goes. The fundamental action is often filling out a paper survey, or at the most expensive having graduate students interview subjects and writing about it.
- ferbivore 3y ago
  These points are only valid if the research isn’t bogus nonsense. Social science has a very poor track record in that regard, I suspect because bogus nonsense gets a lot of clicks.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
giantg2 3y ago
And what the article doesn't say which the study does, is that the non-incel group also had these estimation errors but to a slightly lesser degree. (Or perhaps the self-reported baseline data frome the female survey participants had bias too).
- flenserboy 3y ago
  It would be interesting to see if expressed preferences could be set against actual choices made in dating. People lie, very often to themselves, about what they actually want.
  - 3y ago

Joeboy 3y ago

Pharmacological solution to a social problem.

simmerup 3y ago
Drug them into submission

go13 3y ago

[flagged]

layer8 3y ago

> A study at Swansea University found incels - or involuntary celibates - overestimated physical attractiveness and finances, while underestimating kindness, humour and loyalty. If incels are less attractive and less well-off than the average (I don’t know if they are, but it seems plausible), then they will be more affected by women’s financial and attractiveness preferences than the average, which in turn will inform their views. So the “thinking error” might be based on actual experience.

cedws 3y ago
Attractiveness is the #1 predictor of success on dating apps which as of 2024 account for a major slice of dating. Saying "dating apps aren't real life" makes no sense because dating apps are real life, and meeting people in person is becoming less and less common. You can be the most kind and funny person in the world, but if you don't get matches on dating apps, you're going to have a hard time.
- layer8 3y ago
  The article isn’t saying that attractiveness and financials aren’t important, but that incels are overestimating them, presumably relative to their real/average importance. My point in the GP post is that they may not actually be overestimating them relative to their personal experience.
  - cedws 3y ago
    I see, thanks. I think it is hard to overestimate the importance of looks if they're the barrier to you simply getting started. But this is the realm of social sciences, so I guess none of this research is concrete anyway.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    "presumably relative to their real/average importance." It's relative to what the female participants self reported as being important. "My point in the GP post is that they may not actually be overestimating them relative to their personal experience." Agreed. "The article isn’t saying that attractiveness and financials aren’t important, but that incels are overestimating them," The actual study shows both incel and non-incel groups had similar estimation "errors" but with incels being slightly to somewhat farther from the baseline.

alimw 3y ago

Is the error to assume that any logic at all might apply to this matter? "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

JieJie 3y ago

Natalie Wynn's video^0 on incels always struck me as uniquely useful, not just for exploring their genesis and radicalization, but in generating empathy for those who suffer from it. 0: https://youtu.be/fD2briZ6fB0 https://youtu.be/fD2briZ6fB0

pylua 3y ago

I think in general men have to get use to rejection and it’s a tough pill to swallow. There seems to be by far more rejection than acceptance for a lot of young men, and it can be very difficult to persevere after being beaten down. I wish this would be researched more.

joshschreuder 3y ago
I think this probably gets a lot worse before it gets better. I'm not in the space myself but am close with a number of primary/elementary educators and from my perspective it appears as though in Western/developed countries at least there has been a massive shift away from teaching rejection and "life is unfair" philosophy and moving towards "everyone's a winner" type stuff. And education has a perverse incentive to just promote kids that are floundering instead of failing/holding them back and upsetting parents / making more work for the already underpaid and overworked teachers. We're only just recently trying to course correct for this by teaching resilience training, because of course these kids will get to the "real world" of tertiary education / careers and just completely fall apart the first time things don't work out exactly as they planned. I would be curious to see the age ranges of self reported incels and whether this correlates to a modern generation raised like this.
- pylua 3y ago
  I think the schools unfortunately are not equipped to do resilience training — they are only able to pacify failures.

numbers_guy 3y ago

1. Take a look around you. If there are no women in the room, you're in the wrong room. Location matters. 2. Take a look around you. Feel the vibe. If you are not vibing with the people in the room, you're in the wrong room. How you come across to others matters. You don't want to be the loser in the room. If you do 1. and 2. then it's just a matter of trying and failing until someone sticks around. 3. As a man you will always have to lead. That's expected of men. You have to ask her out. You have to advance the relationship forward. 4. Once you get a girl interested, threat her well, but don't put her on a pedestal. She wants to look up to you, not the other way round. ...things I wish I realized a long time ago

corethree 3y ago

I don't like the word incel and I've been labeled as that by people for simply having unconventional opinions which is ironic given the fact that I'm married. Incels are real and they are extremist. But in the dating game and in the world of relationships things are fundamentally unequal. Women have many many advantages and they have things a lot easier in many cases. This is real and even hinting at this gets you labeled as an incel. The current status quo of what people assume to be true as implied in the article is wrong. Incels have noticed this and taken it to the extreme. The problem is most people really buy into this idealistic narrative of relationships and these descriptions that are flat out wrong. Here's a common example and this will actually trigger most people because it's so unconventional: When it comes to relationships men are the more romantic and emotional sex while women are the more logical and practical sex. Think about it. Men do all these irrational things that are "romantic" in the form of gifts and tribute and they offer all this to a woman almost unconditionally. The women on the other hand makes a practical choice. She chooses the man based off a multitude of attributes including income which is highly, highly practical and logical. For men, did the income of a woman ever matter? Does her job even really matter? It's illogical not to factor that in as it influenced the relationship. But as all men know, income and occupation and even status isn't even part of the criteria. Men are illogical when it comes to relationships. Also think about it. If a man loses his job or becomes in capable of supporting a family. What does a woman with options do? She will leave. Her relationship with a man is conditioned on practicality. If It is practical for her to leave most women will. What if a woman becomes unemployed and unable to support the family? No problem there. Because the man loves her romantically, not practically. Any man reading this will know what I'm saying is true. But this goes against the modern narrative. You can get attacked and labeled for saying such a thing. It sounds bad but it is what it is. It's just the way things are. Overall what I'm trying to say here is that the word incel has been weaponized and over used. Incels do exist. But the worst thing that's happening here is not the concept of an incel. The status quo of what most men and women understand about male or female behavior is just fundamentally wrong and way too idealistic. There are dark truths here that we don't want to face and a lot of people who throw around the word "incel" are such people who are afraid. This is reality: Men and women are not equal. They are different physically, mentally, intellectually, emotionally and psychologically and many of these differences are biological in nature. This unequality is not fair and balanced either... there's no black magic that says for every male weakness there's a female strength and counterpart to make up for it or vice versa. There are real reasons why there are more men in tech than women other than "oppression" and If you can't accept this and if you think this is an "incel" mentality, then I'm sorry to say you're not in touch with reality.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

antisthenes 3y ago

Another content-free article for an irrelevant university that blames the victim, instead of proposing a long-term solution. Far-reaching conclusions based on self-reported surveys are worth less than nothing. It's a great tool to be used as propaganda for either side, but it doesn't really solve the underlying mental health issues of vulnerable demographics.

h2odragon 3y ago

Goats are cheap, pliant, and edible.