Challenging Gender Norms: A Conversation with Award-Winning Psychologist Dr. Joseph Vandello

This month, we are honored to spotlight award-winning social psychologist Dr. Joseph Vandello from the University of South Florida, whose work has deeply influenced our understanding of gender, cultural psychology, prejudice, morality, and status. Dr. Vandello recently received the Outstanding Consulting Editor Award from our flagship journal, Psychology of Men & Masculinities. We recently sat down with Dr. Vandello to discuss key moments from his career and his dedication to advancing the field through thoughtful editorial leadership. Join us as we explore Dr. Vandello's influential contributions and his vision for the future of gender studies.

Can you tell me about an early or recent professional experience of yours that has helped to shape your path within the field of psychology?

During my first year in graduate school, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and uncertain about my future. I didn’t really feel passionate about my chosen Master’s thesis research topic (group goal setting). At the end of the year, my department at the University of Illinois hired a new social psychologist, Dov Cohen, and I immediately found the research he was doing on culture and aggression more aligned with my research interests. I think that was a turning point for me, finding research that excited me. And my advisor was instrumental in giving me confidence that I had what it takes to make this a career.

How did you find yourself to be interested in (precarious) manhood, work and family issues, cultural psychology, and gender-related anxiety? What is a hope of yours for how your research on these issues might impact our understanding of men and masculinities or other work in the field?

Coming out of graduate school and early in my career as a professor, I was studying male honor and its connection to violence. I had mostly approached this from a cultural perspective, but I began to think of it more as a fundamental aspect of gender. And I began exploring how people are often punished for violating gender prescriptions. A couple of years after starting my career at USF, my department hired Jennifer Bosson, who was doing some interesting work on role rigidity that had some obvious overlap with my emerging interests. We quickly began a collaboration that led to the development of a program of research on precarious manhood that continues to this day.

What’s been most exciting for me to see as a researcher of manhood and gender more generally is how over the past decade or so, we (the field and broader society) have become more open to thinking about gender in more complex ways. Most people now recognize that sex is more complex than “male and female” and gender exists on a spectrum of natural variation. Psychologists studying gender are leading the way in this shift. I think this is leading to important cultural conversations about what manhood and masculinity mean. It’s a hot topic right now.

What do you find most meaningful about your work as a consulting editor? Why did you choose to do it?

My favorite part about being an editor is learning about new research right as it’s being introduced to the world. It’s a great way to learn about who is doing what. I’ve gotten a lot of reviews of my own papers over the years, some that I disliked, but many that I thought were really thoughtful and helpful (even when they were harsh). So, I feel an obligation to try to do the same for others in the community. I also find that writing reviews has made me a better writer and better thinker, because it really forces you to think about the craft of research, including methods, statistics, and paper construction.

As a consulting editor for PMM, what do you look for in an ideal manuscript?

First, I want to feel like I’m learning something new that either brings clarity to something for which there was no consensus or that shifts the consensus (we all thought it was X but it was really Y). Papers that start by just saying, “Nobody has studied X before” aren’t as compelling to me, because they haven’t made the case why X is important.

Second, I look for reasonably strong evidence for the claims that are made. It’s important that the authors don’t go beyond what the data actually say. This is not to say that results need to be perfect (they rarely are), but the reader should walk away feeling fairly convinced by the evidence.

What advice would you give to an aspiring PMM author?

Before you submit a paper for formal review, have a trusted colleague read it over and tell them not to hold back. The more holes you can plug (in your writing, your logic, your analyses), the better off you’ll be when you submit.

Joseph A. Vandello, Ph.D.

Professor

Department of Psychology

University of South Florida

PCD 4135

Tampa, FL 33620