Men who were told their romantic partners had scored in the bottom 12% on a test felt better about themselves, unconsciously, than those whose partners were said to have scored in the top 12% (0.47 versus 0.25 on a zero-to-0.7 “implicit self-esteem” scale), according to Kate A. Ratliff of the University of Florida and Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia. The female participants in the researchers’ series of experiments showed no such decline in implicit self-esteem when their partners failed. Because men are generally more competitive than women, they may be more likely to interpret a partner’ success as indicating that they are somehow deficient, the researchers suggest.
SOURCE: Men Feel Worse About Themselves When Female Partners Succeed, Says New Research