Faculty
Psychology
Supervisor Name
Dr. James Kim, Dr. Samantha Joel
Keywords
Incel, hostile sexism, sexual narcissism, sexual exploitation, sexual skill, domestic terrorism, singlehood
Description
‘Incels’ are an online community of single men who endorse toxic worldviews about women stemming from their dissatisfaction with singlehood. Approximately 50 deaths have been tied to the incel community. Incels have been identified as an emerging domestic terrorism threat in Canada, the US and UK. Yet, little is known about the characteristics of this community, the potential level of threat, or what we can do to prevent this threat from escalating. In an online study of 1714 single individuals, we examined what personality traits are associated with one’s identification as an incel. Participants completed a survey consisting of various psychological measures and the extent to which they identify with incel-related labels. The top unique predictors of incel identification were hostile sexism, sexual exploitation and sexual skill, together accounting for 16% of the variance in incel identification. Findings have important implications for identifying potential targets for intervention to minimize the risks incels present to society.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Dr. James Kim, Dr. Samantha Joel, the Western USRI program, and the Faculty of Psychology for their support.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Document Type
Poster
Included in
Characteristics of those who identify as ‘incels’
‘Incels’ are an online community of single men who endorse toxic worldviews about women stemming from their dissatisfaction with singlehood. Approximately 50 deaths have been tied to the incel community. Incels have been identified as an emerging domestic terrorism threat in Canada, the US and UK. Yet, little is known about the characteristics of this community, the potential level of threat, or what we can do to prevent this threat from escalating. In an online study of 1714 single individuals, we examined what personality traits are associated with one’s identification as an incel. Participants completed a survey consisting of various psychological measures and the extent to which they identify with incel-related labels. The top unique predictors of incel identification were hostile sexism, sexual exploitation and sexual skill, together accounting for 16% of the variance in incel identification. Findings have important implications for identifying potential targets for intervention to minimize the risks incels present to society.