Not only women, but also other men find male modesty an unattractive trait, perhaps because they believe that bashful boys are letting the side down, said the researc-hers. “Our findings demonstrate that men encounter prejudice when they behave modestly,” said lead researcher Prof Laurie Rudman.
“They also raise the possibility that men may avoid behaving modestly because they risk backlash when they do,” Rudman was quoted as saying by the “Daily Mail”.
“Changes in gender roles that have afforded women more financial independence have not yielded relaxed demands for men. Men are still required to uphold masculine ideals that require chronic exhibitions of strength while avoiding signs of weakness.”
For the study, volunteers were showed videotapes of more than 200 men and women applying for a job as a computer lab manager. The male and female actors both followed the same script in the mocked-up interview and were equally humble about their achievements.
The volunteers were then asked to rate them for modesty, likeability and a range of other factors. Despite the actors being equally qualified for the job, the men were liked less than the women.
“Modest men were not liked as much as modest women because they were viewed as ‘too weak’ for a man and because they were viewed as insufficiently confident and ambitious,” they wrote.