The precarious nature of manhood, a hard-won and easily lost social status, has been linked to negative outcomes such as aggression in men, lower well-being for men and women, and more instances of workplace harassment. We posit that precarious manhood also influences men's perceptions of social sexual behavior (SSB) directed at them by a coworker of the opposite gender, shedding light on gender asymmetries in perceptions of SSB at work. Across four experiments (N = 1656), we demonstrate that men are more receptive to SSB from attractive women when their manhood is threatened compared to when it is affirmed (Studies 1–2). This effect holds after controlling for short-term mating orientation, is limited to men's (as opposed to women's) perceptions of SSB from opposite-gender initiators (Study 2) and is also limited to men's perceptions of SSB from attractive (versus unattractive) women (Study 3). Additionally, we find that at baseline, men who receive SSB from attractive women experience greater feelings of masculinity, which are limited to perceptions of sexual (versus nonsexual) behavior from attractive women, ruling out the possibility that men are simply more flatterable than women (Study 4). Our findings suggest that men's insecurities about their manhood may leave them more vulnerable to potentially problematic workplace behaviors that cater to their sense of masculinity.

男子气概的不稳定本质是一种来之不易且容易失去的社会地位，这与负面结果有关，例如男性的攻击性、男性和女性的幸福感下降以及更多的工作场所骚扰事件。我们认为，不稳定的男子气概也会影响男性对异性同事针对他们的社会性行为 (SSB) 的看法，从而揭示工作中对 SSB 的看法中的性别不对称。跨越四个实验（N = 1656），我们证明男性在男子气概受到威胁时比在受到肯定时更容易接受有吸引力的女性的 SSB（研究 1-2）。在控制了短期交配方向后，这种效应仍然存在，仅限于男性（相对于女性）对异性发起者的 SSB 看法（研究 2），也仅限于男性对有吸引力（与没有吸引力）女性的 SSB 看法（研究 3）。此外，我们发现在基线时，从有吸引力的女性那里接受 SSB 的男性会体验到更多的男子气概，这仅限于对有吸引力女性的性（与非性）行为的看法，排除了男性只是比女性更讨人喜欢的可能性。研究 4)。我们的研究结果表明，男性