Incels' View of What Women Think Is Important Is Wrong, Study Finds

A study has shed new light on the psychology of incels, providing insights into the way this subculture views women and the challenges they face.

Incels (short for involuntary celibates) are a primarily online community of mainly heterosexual men who forge a sense of identity around their perceived inability to form sexual or romantic relationships.

The incel community provides an outlet for self-identified members to express frustration and blame toward society, as well as misogynistic hostility, according to the study's authors. Concerns have also arisen about violence stemming from the community, which has occurred in rare instances.

Incels have significantly poorer mental health, compared with similar samples of single men, putting them at increased risk of self-harm, previous studies have shown. Incels' mating difficulties and poor mental health—which includes such conditions as severe depression, anxiety and loneliness—may influence each other.

A significant proportion of incels also exhibit traits associated with autism spectrum disorder. One 2022 study, for example, found that the rate of diagnosed autism was far higher in its incel sample than the global prevalence.

Despite significant media speculation about the potential "mating psychology" of incels, this has yet to be formally investigated in the scientific literature.

The latest study, published in The Journal of Sex Research, represents the first formal investigation into incel mating psychology, according to the authors. For the study, the researchers surveyed 151 incels and 149 non-incels from around the globe, comparing the responses between the two groups.

The findings indicate that incels are characterized by low levels of self-perceived value as a sexual or romantic partner. It also showed that people in this community make fundamental errors about what females look for in a romantic partner. For example, they overestimate the importance of physical attractiveness and financial resources while underestimating the significance women place on intelligence, kindness, humor and loyalty.

Furthermore, the researchers found—contrary to certain mainstream media narratives—that incels have lower standards for partners, compared with non-incels.

"This research marks a crucial step forward in understanding the problems incels face and represent in society," William Costello of the University of Texas at Austin, the study's lead author, said in a press release. "Unsurprisingly, incels have a low sense of their own mate value. But interestingly, evidence shows that men are most inclined toward misogyny when they doubt their appeal to female partners and that unwanted celibacy—independent of incel identity—predicts misogyny."

He went on: "The misogyny pervading much of the incel community likely reflects their low sense of mate value. This means that helping incels improve their own mate value and mating prospects would have the added benefit of reducing harmful instances of misogyny."

The study has some limitations. For example, it relied upon incels' self-identifying rather than looking at "incel-typical" behavior and cognition. This leaves open the possibility that some participants with incel tendencies identified as non-incels.

Nevertheless, the study's findings shed new light on the general psychology of incels and suggest that they should be targeted for interventions to challenge cognitive distortions in their female partner preferences.

"These could be targeted using cognitive behavioral therapy grounded interventions to help correct these errors in mind-reading and disrupt the confirmation bias that fuels their toxic beliefs," said Andrew Thomas, a co-author of the study who is with the U.K.'s Swansea University, in the release.

"At the same time, we also found that non-incel single men suffered from similar errors, just not to the same degree, suggesting that such interventions might be useful to singles more broadly," he said.

Kathryn Baselice, a forensic psychiatrist at the Washington, D.C., Department of Behavioral Health, who was not involved in the latest study, told Newsweek that the findings of the research are an "important mirror" to the rhetoric found online in incel message forums.

"For instance, the comparatively high level of self-identified internal and external reasons for singlehood voiced by incels is consistent with the self-hatred and frustration towards society that can be seen on forums," Baselice said. "Such reasons may encapsulate a myriad of cognitive distortions which are important targets for therapy and other interventions.

"In addition, this paper is an important contribution to a relatively sparse research literature that surveys incels directly. Prior research often focused on content analysis of incel forums or similarly indirect forms of study."

According to Baselice, the results of the latest research have several important implications.

"The first is that popular media portrayals of incels are likely unfair and do not fully capture the incel mindset," she said. "The survey shows incels have a low self-perceived mate value. This in turn hints at the self-loathing that can be seen in members of this group, which is often overlooked when incels are discussed.

"What I found fascinating was the limited importance incels—indeed all men in this study—felt traits, such as loyalty and kindness, were to potential partners. These traits, to some degree, are within one's ability to control or at least outwardly project. The finding highlights the gap in understanding men and women sometimes experience with one another, which can make the dating scene fraught."

Update 2/9/24, 10:51 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional comments from Kathryn Baselice.