There has been no attempt to confirm causation here, merely a gesture at a phenomenon that sounds like it could happen because it appeals to our arbitrary conceptions of masculinity, independence, and adulthood.

I think expecting objective scientific evidence over something as subjective as a "type" is a bit much. How would one even go about proving causation in something as as complex as an emotion?

Since we don't understand the brain as a whole system, I admit we can't "prove causation" of anything yet. But we can attempt to understand it by analyzing what we can observe. Ancient astrologists couldn't discover the physical laws that govern how stars are created by observing them. But they did learn how the stars moved across the sky and had great predictive power when it came to their paths hundreds of years in the future. Even if all of their explanations were bunk, they were still able to etch out some understanding while science had yet to catch up.