Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, University of New South Wales.
Melbourne Data Analytics Platform, The University of Melbourne.
Psychol Sci. 2022 Feb;33(2):249-258. doi: 10.1177/09567976211036065. Epub 2022 Jan 11.
Young men with few prospects of attracting a mate have historically threatened the internal peace and stability of societies. In some contemporary societies, such involuntary celibate-or -men promote much online misogyny and perpetrate real-world violence. We tested the prediction that online incel activity arises via local real-world mating-market forces that affect relationship formation. From a database of 4 billion Twitter posts (2012-2018), we geolocated 321 million tweets to 582 commuting zones in the continental United States, of which 3,649 tweets used words peculiar to incels and 3,745 were about incels. We show that such tweets arise disproportionately within places where mating competition among men is likely to be high because of male-biased sex ratios, few single women, high income inequality, and small gender gaps in income. Our results suggest a role for social media in monitoring and mitigating factors that lead young men toward antisocial behavior in real-world societies.
历史上，那些鲜有机会吸引伴侣的年轻男性曾威胁到社会的内部和平与稳定。在一些当代社会中，这种被迫单身的男性在网络上煽动厌女情绪，并在现实世界中实施暴力。我们验证了一个假设，即网络上的独身主义者的活动是通过影响人际关系形成的当地现实世界的婚配市场力量产生的。我们从一个包含 40 亿条推文（2012-2018 年）的数据库中，将 3.21 亿条推文定位到美国大陆的 582 个通勤区，其中 3649 条推文使用了独身主义者特有的词语，而 3745 条推文则是关于独身主义者的。我们表明，由于男性偏多的性别比例、单身女性较少、收入不平等程度高以及性别收入差距较小，这些推文在男性之间婚配竞争可能很高的地方不成比例地出现。我们的研究结果表明，社交媒体在监测和缓解导致年轻男性在现实社会中产生反社会行为的因素方面发挥着作用。
