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Today’s superheroes send out ‘wrong message’ to boys as they promote violence and revenge as a way fo life, according to psychologists who spoke at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.

Watching superheroes beat up villains may not be the best image for boys to see if society wants to promote kinder, less stereotypical male behaviours, they claim.

“There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday,” said psychologist Sharon Lamb, PhD, distinguished professor of mental health at University of Massachusetts-Boston.

“Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity. When not in superhero costume, these men, like Ironman, exploit women, flaunt bling and convey their manhood with high-powered guns.”

The comic book heroes of the past did fight criminals, she said, “but these were heroes boys could look up to and learn from because outside of their costumes, they were real people with real problems and many vulnerabilities,” she said.

To better understand how the media and marketing managers package masculinity to boys, Lamb surveyed 674 boys age 4 to 8. She and her co-authors found that marketing managers take advantage of boys’ need to forge their identity in adolescence and sell them a narrow version of masculinity.

They can either be a “player” or a “slacker” – the guy who never even tries – to save face.

“In today’s media, superheroes and slackers are the only two options boys have,” said Dr Lamb. “Boys are told, if you can’t be a superhero, you can always be a slacker.

“Slackers are funny, but slackers are not what boys should strive to be; slackers don’t like school and they shirk responsibility.

She said that original superheroes like Superman who was a reporter by day and the Green Lantern, who was a railroad engineer, were invented to fight for social justice and were a reaction to the rise of fascism.

But the new breed of superheroes only thought about themselves.

She said boys need to be taught from an early age to distance themselves from the se images and encouraging them into finding the lies in the messages can help.