Sex differences in childhood socialization patterns in African societies

Data on sex-role socialization patterns of 29 African and 79 non-African societies were analyzed to test a set of hypotheses about the extent of sex-typing displayed in the child-training processes of African societies. Findings suggest that clear sex differences in socialization emphases and behavioral outcomes exist within African societies; moreover, such differentials resemble those reported among societies from other world cultural regions. In addition, three interesting secondary findings suggest that (1) males experience greater overall levels of socialization anxiety than females; (2) greater overall normative pressure is exerted on males than females in the course of child training; (3) in the aggregate, male children tend to be more compliant in reproducing ideal role-related behavior patterns than female children.     

Sex differences in childhood sexual abuse and suicide-related behaviors

Child sexual abuse and suicide-related behaviors are associated, but it remains unclear if the strength of this association differs in boys and girls. In a systematic review of this association in children and youth, we identified 16 relevant studies, all cross-sectional surveys of students. The association is stronger in boys specific to suicide attempt(s). Adjustments for potential confounding variables explained some, but not all of this sex difference. While additional research would strengthen causal inferences, this sex difference may be influenced by the nature and timing of child sexual abuse as well as the sex of the perpetrator, which in turn shapes the disclosure of these events.     

Sex differences in ADHD trajectories across childhood and adolescence

Previous studies have hinted at sex differences in developmental trajectories in ADHD symptoms; however, little is known about the nature or cause of these differences and their implications for clinical practice. We used growth mixture modelling in a community‐ascertained cohort of n = 1,571 participants to study sex differences in ADHD symptom developmental trajectories across the elementary and secondary school years. Participants were measured at ages 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 15. We found that females were more likely to show large symptom increases in early adolescence while males were more likely to show elevated symptoms from childhood. For both males and females, early adolescence represented a period of vulnerability characterized by relatively sudden symptom increases. Females affected by hyperactivity/impulsivity may be more likely to be excluded from diagnosis due to current age of onset criteria. More attention should be paid to early adolescence as a period of risk for hyperactivity/impulsivity symptom onset or worsening.     

Gender differences in emotional experiences across childhood,romantic relationship,and self-defining memories

The aim of the present study is to examine the gender differences in emotional experiences across three different types of autobiographical memory. A total of 612 undergraduate students from Izmir, Turkey, were asked to recall a memory either from childhood, from romantic relationships, or from self-defining experiences. A gender difference was found in the intensity of anxiety, sadness, and pride for romantic relationship memories. Men had higher scores on emotional distancing than women in self-defining memories. With regard to emotional valance, women’s feelings were less positive than men’s feelings when remembering childhood and romantic relationship experiences, whereas they were more positive than men’s feelings when remembering self-defining experiences. The findings support the notion that gender differences in emotional experiences during the autobiographical recollection of personal life events vary across different memory types.     

Another look at gender-related differences in leadership behavior

This investigation examined self-related behavioral differences in terms of broad leadership styles using a methodology that minimized biases inherent in research designs previously employed to investigate this area. Subjects consisted of 40 males and 41 females who served in the role of leader, and who instructed both a male and a female subordinate in a card-sorting task. Experimental sessions were tape-recorded and transcribed, after which judges classified word phrases into various language categories. Factor analysis of the language categories yielded two factors of verbal behavior within a leadership situation: a socially oriented style and a task-oriented style. In contrast to generally accepted stereotypes, results indicated that within the present experimental context male leaders preferred to use phrases that indicated a more social style than female leaders. However, both male and female leaders used language that indicated a task-oriented approach to a significantly greater degree when instructing a female rather than a male subordinate. Implications and interpretations of the results are discussed.     

Children dating childhood memories

How accurate are children when dating very long-term memories? Chinese and European Canadian 8-, 11-, and 14-year-olds (N=344) recalled and dated memories from before they went to school in a memory fluency task. Parents provided verification of children's memories and age estimates. Across all age and culture groups, a telescoping effect (i.e., events were dated as taking place more recently than they actually did) was found for earlier memories (before 48 months) and a reverse telescoping effect for later memories (after 48 months). Older children showed a greater tendency to telescope earlier memories and a weaker tendency to reverse telescope later memories than did younger children. Euro-Canadian children showed larger reverse telescoping than Chinese children. These are the first systematic findings concerning the accuracy of children's dating of very long-term memories. They shed new light on the phenomenon of telescoping and have implications for research on childhood amnesia.     

Judgement of confidence in childhood memories

Memory judgement processes, based on the characteristics and associations of retrieved memories such as sensory details and supporting memories, are considered as important as retrieval in several autobiographical memory models. Judgement processes have received less research attention than memory characteristics themselves. The present studies examined memory judgement using qualitative analysis of the reasons participants gave for confidence in retrieved childhood memories. For memories they were confident of, participants cited memory phenomenology, especially sensory and affective details, much more frequently than consistency with other autobiographical knowledge. For memories they were not confident of, participants reported lack of consistency with autobiographical knowledge or with others' memories more often than memory phenomenology as reasons for their uncertainty. Participants' comments also revealed several metacognitive beliefs about the relationship between memory characteristics and accuracy. These data are consistent with two‐process models of memory judgement associated with true versus false memories. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

False memories of childhood experiences

We conducted two experiments to investigate if college students would create false memories of childhood experiences in response to misleading information and repeated interviews. In both experiments we contacted parents to obtain information about events that happened to the students during childhood. In a series of interviews we asked the students to recall the parent-reported events and one experimenter-created false event. In the second experiment we varied the age at which we claimed the false event occurred. In both experiments we found that some individuals created false memories in these circumstances and in the second experiment we found no effect of age of attempted incorporation. In the second experiment we also found that those who discussed related background knowledge during the early interviews were more likely to create a false recall. Generalizations to therapy contexts are discussed.     

Exercise behavior and gender-related differences in posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

ObjectivesExercise has been proposed as a potential treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the relationship between exercise, gender, and PTSD symptoms is unknown.DesignThis study examined the cross-sectional relationship among these variables in a national sample of 165 men and women who screened positive for PTSD.MethodParticipants completed an online survey consisting of the Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire and the PTSD Checklist-Civilian.ResultsActive participants had significantly lower PTSD symptoms than insufficiently active participants. Significant interactions between gender and exercise for PTSD symptoms were found, such that active men had significantly lower PTSD symptoms than active women, and insufficiently active men and women. Additionally, strenuously active men reported significantly lower hyperarousal symptoms than strenuously active women, and insufficiently active men and women.ConclusionFindings suggest that the relationship between PTSD and exercise may differ for specific sub-populations of individuals with PTSD, such as men and women.     

Intrafamilial similarities and cross-generational differences in the earliest childhood memories of daughters,mothers, and grandmothers

This study aimed to examine how daughters, mothers, and grandmothers from the same families resembled each other and how these three generations differed from each other in narrating their earliest childhood memories. Fifty-nine triads from the same families filled out a memory questionnaire and were asked to narrate their earliest childhood memories. Results revealed both intrafamilial similarities and cross-generational difference on characteristics of triads’ earliest childhood memories. After earliest childhood memories were coded for memory characteristics, we measured intrafamilial similarities using intra-class correlation coefficients across three generations for each memory characteristic. Results revealed that the earliest childhood memories of members of the same family were significantly similar in terms of level of detail and volume. Although similar patterns among members of the same families were observed in self-related and other-related words, the other/self ratio did not display an intrafamilial similarity. We also measured cross-generational differences and found that daughters’ reported age of their earliest childhood memories was dated significantly earlier compared to their grandmothers. Results revealed predominant intrafamilial similarities among the members of the same family and cross-generational differences in terms of the age of the earliest childhood memory.     

The distribution of early childhood memories

The quantitative distribution of autobiographical memories for the first decade of life is described. The distribution, based on over 11,000 autobiographical memories from age 10 and younger from published studies, is nearly identical for males and females, for participants of different ages, and for different methods of collecting data, including using words to cue memories from anywhere in the lifespan or from just the childhood years, exhaustive listing of all early memories, and interviews.     

Predicting depression using earliest childhood memories

In order to investigate the utility of earliest childhood memories (EMs) in clinical assessment, this study investigated the value of EMs in predicting naturally occurring depressive mood states. Of interest were those features of EMs that discriminate depressed from nondepressed individuals. Subjects were 212 undergraduate volunteers who completed the Beck Depression Inventory, the Profile of Mood States, and a self-administered EM questionnaire. Utilizing thematic predictors derived from cognitive and psychodynamic theories of depression, depressed subjects were differentiated from nondepressed subjects at a rate significantly greater than chance, p less than .001, with a highly respectable estimate of cross-validation shrinkage. The findings demonstrate the phenomenon of mood dependent recall in autobiographical memory, namely, that memory attributes are strongly influenced by current mood state. Consistent with psychodynamic theories of depression and in contrast to cognitive theory, depressive mood states appear to facilitate retrieval of memory schemas involving deprivation and disturbing human interaction. Schemas involving loss of control, failure, or reactions to noncontingent reinforcement (perceptions of the self as agent) appear less salient than relationship schemas (perceptions of the self as related) in depressive experience.     

Sex differences in cognition

Sex differences in cognitive skills, grouped into three areas — motor, spatial, and linguistic — are assessed in the context of current notions of cerebral lateralization (Buffery and Gray, 1972). There are few convincing sex differences, either overall, or in interactions with (putative) functional localization. There are several qualifying criteria (nature of further interactions with age, birth order, culture, sex of experimenter, sex role pressure) which would have to be met, but these are as yet inadequately documented. Serious caution is urged on the proliferating number of researchers in this area.     

The distribution of early childhood memories

The quantitative distribution of autobiographical memories for the first decade of life is described. The distribution, based on over 11,000 autobiographical memories from age 10 and younger from published studies, is nearly identical for males and females, for participants of different ages, and for different methods of collecting data, including using words to cue memories from anywhere in the lifespan or from just the childhood years, exhaustive listing of all early memories, and interviews.     

Sex differences in self-silencing

The construct of self-silencing was proposed to account for women's greater vulnerability to developing depression. This study of 1,117 students (795 women and 322 men) explored possible explanations for the empirical finding that men self-silence to the same or greater extent than women. Analysis showed that men reported more self-silencing than women. A factor analysis confirmed the subscale structure of the Silencing the Self Scale for women and men, with relatively few departures from the originally proposed subscales. Depression and self-silencing scores were correlated positively for both men and women. The results of two multiple regressions, performed separately for men and women, showed that depressive symptomatology accounted for a significant percentage of the variance in self-silencing but that social desirability did not account for a significant increment in the variance accounted for in silencing the self. The scores on the Care as Self-sacrifice and the Divided Self subscales were intercorrelated for women, but not for men, indicating that there may be a sex difference in perception of self-silencing behavior.     

Sex differences in pain

Are there sex differences in pain? For experimentally delivered somatic stimuli, females have lower thresholds, greater ability to discriminate, higher pain ratings, and less tolerance of noxious stimuli than males. These differences, however, are small, exist only for certain forms of stimulation and are affected by many situational variables such as presence of disease, experimental setting, and even nutritive status. For endogenous pains, women report more multiple pains in more body regions than men. With no obvious underlying rationale, some painful diseases are more prevalent among females, others among males and, for many diseases, symptoms differ between females and males. Sex differences in attitudes exist that affect not only reporting, coping, and responses to treatment, but also measurement and treatment. So many variables are operative, however, that the most striking feature of sex differences in reported pain experience is the apparent overall lack of them. On the other hand, deduction from known biological sex differences suggests that these are powerful sex differences in the operation of pain mechanisms. First, the vaginal canal provides an additional route in women for internal trauma and invasion by pathological agents that puts them at greater risk for developing hyperalgesia in multiple body regions. Second, sex differences in temporal patterns are likely to give rise to sex differences in how pain is "learned" and stimuli are interpreted, a situation that could lead to a greater variability and wider range of pains without obvious peripheral pathology among females. Third, sex differences in the actions of sex hormones suggest pain-relevant differences in the operation of many neuroactive agents, opiate and nonopiate systems, nerve growth factor, and the sympathetic system. Thus, while inductive analysis of existing data demonstrate more similarities than differences in pain experience between females and males, deductive analysis suggests important operational sex differences in its production.     

Sex differences in depression

The role of housewife has been hypothesized as the source of excess mental illness among married women as compared with married men. The present study found both housewives and working wives significantly more depressed than working husbands. Although working wives report that they do more housework than husbands, this factor was not significantly related to depression for either wives or husbands. It is suggested that the risk factors for depression, including marriage for women, may be better understood in the context of clinical theories of depression, especially the learned helplessness model.     

Performance factors and gender-related differences in spatial ability: Another assessment

To explore whether test-taking styles (performance factors)cancontribute to explaining gender. related differences on tests of spatial ability, 15 spatial tests were administered to three samples of subjects. On each test, number-correct scores and ratio scores (number of items solved divided by the number of items attempted) were computed. In accordance with previous research findings, the use ofratio scores significantly reduced the magnitude ofthe gender-related differences on the Mental Rotations Test. For most of the remaining tests, however, the reduction of the gender-related score difference was small. It was concluded that the difference reduction for the Mental Rotations Test was specific to the format of this test. In common spatial tests, performance factors may account for a small portion of gender-related variance, but the bulk of this variance must be attributed to other factors.     

Assessing gender-related differences in achievement orientation using two different achievement scales

The consistent finding that the achievement scales of the Adjective Check List (ACL) and Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) are not correlated has led researchers to question the validity of both of these measures. This article presents evidence indicating that although these measures are independent, they can predict the same performance criteria. Of interest is that the EPPS predicts outcomes for men, whereas the ACL predicts performance for women. A topical examination of each measure's relationships to other scales provides a tentative rationale for these scales' orthogonality that does not call into question the validity of either measure.