Thread by @CostelloWilliam

Preprint of our 1st paper from my MSc dissertation research.

Levels of Wellbeing Among men who are Incel (Involuntary Celibate)

Thanks to my mentors & co-authors @Vani_Rolon @DrThomasAG & @PsychoSchmitt

🧵summarising our findings to follow

Read & RT🙏

osf.io/tnf7b/

@Vani_Rolon @DrThomasAG @PsychoSchmitt Incels are a subculture of men who form their identity around a perceived inability to form sexual/romantic relationships. A significant minority of incels engage in misogynistic online hostility & in rare individual cases incels lash out in violent rage e.g., Elliot Rodger.

It is unclear how much of incels' online rhetoric is performatively antagonistic.

However, online misogyny can be used to predict domestic violence,
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

&

Internet “trolls” who are hostile online, are similarly hostile offline.
cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Typically, a surplus population of unpartnered young men disproportionately harm society and themselves, due to increased levels of status-seeking and risk-taking, in what is referred to as “young male syndrome”.

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

We compared n = 151 male incels with n = 378 non incel males.

Incels scored...

Significantly higher on
- Tendency for interpersonal victimhood
- Depression/Anxiety
- Loneliness
- Sociosexual desire

Significantly lower on
- Life satisfaction

58% of incels in our sample reported living with a diagnosed (34%) or undiagnosed (24%) mental-health condition.

Using the PHQ-9 & GAD-7
29.63% were categorised as severely depressed, with 45.68% as moderately severely depressed. 41.77% fell under the “severe anxiety” category.

The Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood describes an ongoing feeling that the self is a victim. Those with victimhood mindsets have an “external locus of control”.

Many incels subscribe to a “black pill” worldview, believing that nothing could improve their romantic prospects.

The Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood is comprised of four dimensions.

1. Need for recognition
2. Moral elitism
3. Lack of empathy
4. Rumination

Incels scored significantly higher on all 4 dimensions and overall.

@sbkaufman explains more here:
scientificamerican.com/article/unrave…

Although media often presents incels as far-right/white supremacist

We found ethnic/political diversity among incels
👇

38.85% right-leaning
44.70% left-leaning
17.47% centrist

A smaller proportion than would be expected by chance identified as white (63.58%), BIPOC: (36.42%)

Jaki et al. found that ~3% of incel posts are racist.
organisms.be/downloads/ince…

Pelzer et al. concluded that racism on incel forums not comparable to white-supremacist forums.

Self-hatred” is a significantly more common form of “toxic language” in forums
link.springer.com/article/10.100…

17% of incel (9% of non-incels) reported to be NEET (not in education employment or training)

36% of incels (19.89% of non-incels) had a secondary (high school) level education or lower.

50.34% of incels (26.95% of non-incels) reported living with their parents or a caregiver.

Given the premium that women indeed place on status, education & economic success when selecting a mate.

Improving the material conditions of men’s lives through education, housing & employment might help them to form romantic relationships.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

@Brooks_Rob et al. could predict areas of high online incel activity using 3 variables

High income-inequality
Male biased sex ratios
Low gender pay-gaps

Incels are at least partly accurate about the socioeconomic drivers contributing to their plight.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

What do incels get out of inceldom?

Fraternity, common enemies, victimhood identity, an excuse not to participate in what they see as an anxiety-inducing mating market.

@MiraLindner describes the incel movement as coalitional bargaining for sexual access
psyarxiv.com/pve8u/

Speckhard et al. (2021) found that

~ Three-quarters of incels said that using forums made them:

“Feel understood”
“Less lonely”
“Provided a sense of belonging”

But a little over half reported that the forum made them ‘’feel hopeless’’

jstor.org/stable/2702663…

In our sample 26% of incels reported using forums

37% of those said using forums made their wellbeing “much” or “somewhat” better.

39% were “not sure”, and 24% thought that it worsened their wellbeing.

Forum use predicted greater anxiety among incels.

Only ~20% of incels indicated they do not believe they will be involuntarily celibate for the rest of their life.

Belief in the permanency of inceldom significantly predicted depression and low life satisfaction

Incels represent a hard to reach & at-risk group.
Yet they are extremely sceptical of mental health interventions.

We suggest that mental health interventions designed to target incels would benefit from an appreciation of evolutionary psychology.

amazon.co.uk/New-CBT-Clinic…

Incel misogyny & tendency to hyperbolically co-opt ideas from evolutionary psychology leads some to unfairly dismiss the field.

We suggest that dismissals of ev psych are illustrative of the “moralistic fallacy” (findings are rejected due to being considered morally unpalatable)

Unfairly dismissing evolutionary psychology risks alienating incels who may consider themselves being unfairly pressed (gaslighted) into doubting their own reality and the sincerity of the challenges they face in attracting a romantic partner.

Mental health professionals with an appreciation of evolutionary psychology, are uniquely placed to build rapport with incels, while also providing appropriate challenge against any hyperbolic misappropriation of evolutionary psychology concepts.

How to help improve incel wellbeing
👇

Cultivate an internal locus of control to overcome the victimhood mindset

Metacognition therapy to minimize rumination
psypost.org/2022/03/new-st…

Improve mating intelligence & socio-economic opportunities, thus improving mating opportunities

Incels are restricted in their sociosexual behaviour, but have high levels of sociosexual desire.

Previous research shows that discrepancies between desire and behaviour result in lower-levels of wellbeing.

We predicted that for incels, having high levels of desire, while ruminating on a perceived inability to act on that desire, would have deleterious effects on wellbeing.

However, desire did not appear to moderate the relationship between inceldom and wellbeing.

Desire correlated with depression, anxiety & loneliness (not life satisfaction), but the prediction that greater levels of sociosexual desire would negatively impact wellbeing for incels more strongly than for non-incels was not supported.

Take home 1/2

Incels have high levels of depression, loneliness, anxiety & sociosexual desire, tendency for interpersonal victimhood & low levels of life-satisfaction. They appear politically & ethnically diverse & more likely to be NEET (not in education employment or training)

Take home 2/2

Incels are partly accurate about socioeconomic drivers contributing to their plight.

Therapeutic interventions should not unfairly dismiss the field of evolutionary psychology, which can help in the understanding of the problems incels face & represent in society.