Peer influence in adolescence and early adulthood is critical to the formation of beliefs about appropriate behaviour for each gender. Complicating matters, recent studies suggest that men overestimate peer support for inequitable gender norms. Combined with social conformity, this susceptibility to ‘norm misperception’ may represent a barrier to women's empowerment. However, why men misperceive peer beliefs remains unclear. Working in an urbanizing Tanzanian community where previous research has documented overestimation of peer support for inequitable gender norms, we used focus groups and participant observation to investigate how young men (aged 18‐30) forge perceptions about their peers. Men characterized their community as undergoing a transition to more equitable gender norms owing to urbanization, globalization, and interactions with external agencies and different ethnicities. This change introduces novel diversity and reinforces uncertainty about prevailing beliefs. Confidence in the discernibility of peer beliefs hinged on whether associated behaviours were visible in the public domain or expressed within the private affairs of women and men. Furthermore, men acknowledged intentionally obscuring behaviour deemed supportive of women to portray ideals of masculine strength. These results suggest that misperception of peer gender role ideology is pronounced during periods of rapid cultural transition and illuminates the mechanisms at play.

中文翻译：

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其他男人怎么想？了解坦桑尼亚年轻男性对同伴性别角色意识形态的（错误）看法


青春期和成年早期的同伴影响对于形成每个性别的适当行为信念至关重要。让事情变得更加复杂的是，最近的研究表明，男性高估了同伴对不平等性别规范的支持。与社会整合相结合，这种对“规范误解”的敏感性可能成为妇女赋权的障碍。然而，为什么男性会误解同伴的信念仍不清楚。我们在坦桑尼亚的一个城市化社区工作，之前的研究记录了对不平等性别规范的同侪支持的高估，我们利用焦点小组和参与观察来调查年轻男性（18-30 岁）如何形成对同龄人的看法。由于城市化、全球化以及与外部机构和不同种族的互动，男性认为他们的社区正在向更公平的性别规范过渡。这种变化带来了新的多样性，并增强了普遍信仰的不确定性。对同伴信仰可辨别性的信心取决于相关行为是否在公共领域可见或在男女的私人事务中表达。此外，男性承认故意掩盖被认为支持女性的行为，以描绘男性力量的理想。这些结果表明，在快速文化转型时期，对同伴性别角色意识形态的误解很明显，并阐明了其中的机制。