Gender Differences in the Incidence of Depression and Anxiety: Econometric Evidence from the USA

Using data from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES) for the United States for the period 2001–2003, this paper addresses a vexed question relating to inter-gender differences in depression rates, namely how much of the observed difference in depression rates between men and women may be explained by differences between them in their exposure, and how much may be explained by differences between them in their response, to depression-inducing factors. The contribution of this paper is to propose a method for disentangling these two influences and to apply it to US data. The central conclusion of the paper was differences between men and women in rates of depression and anxiety were largely to be explained by differences in their responses to depression-inducing factors: the percentage contribution of inter-gender response differences to explaining the overall difference in inter-gender probabilities of being depressed was 93 percent for “sad, empty type depression”; 92 percent for “very discouraged” type depression; and 69 percent for “loss of interest” type depression.     

Gender Differences in Anti-Gay Prejudice: Evidence for Stability and Change

Sex Roles - In recent years, there has been remarkable change in societal acceptance of lesbians and gay men. This meta-analysis explored whether this positive shift has reduced the gender...     

Gender Differences in Memory Perspectives: Evidence for Self-Objectification in Women

This study tests Fredrickson and Roberts' (1997)assertion that cultural practices of sexuallyobjectifying women's bodies socialize women tointernalize an observer's perspective on their physicalselves. Autobiographical memories can contain imagesfrom two perspectives: the original, first personperspective (field images) and that of an outsideobserver (observer images) (Nigro and Neisser, 1983). We collected autobiographical memories for eventsin general and for specific, potentially objectifyingsituations from a predominantly European-American sampleof 138 female and 104 male students at a private university. Results demonstrated that femaleparticipants reported more observer imagery than maleparticipants both for memories in general and formemories of certain situations wherein women are likely to be sexually objectified. Women's and men'semotional responses to these situations were alsodifferent, with women reporting more negative affect,including shame and anxiety, and less positiveaffect.     

Relations Between Body Image and Dieting Behaviors: An Examination of Gender Differences

Although links between body image and dieting behaviors have been established among women, little research is available to elucidate relations between these constructs among men. In the present study, we examined relations between men's and women's body image and healthy and unhealthy dieting behaviors. Two hundred and eight participants' (104 men, mean age = 25.88 years; 104 women, mean age = 23.87 years) body perceptions and body satisfaction were assessed using the Contour Drawing Rating Scale. Participants' dieting behaviors were assessed using the Weight Control Behavior Scale and weight status was assessed using body mass index (BMI). Analyses of relations among BMI, body satisfaction, and healthy dieting behaviors revealed a predictable pattern for both men and women; BMI was inversely related to body satisfaction and was positively related to healthy dieting behaviors. Body satisfaction was inversely related to both men's and women's healthy and unhealthy dieting behaviors. Further analyses of the relations between men's and women's body image and unhealthy dieting behaviors suggest different motives for men's and women's participation in these potentially health-compromising weight-management techniques. Results are discussed in terms of their contribution to researchers' understanding of the gendered nature of body image and dieting behaviors.     

Gender Related Naming Practices: Similarities and Differences Between People and their Dogs

We compared final written letters and spoken phonemes and syllable length in the names of male (N = 250) and female (N = 197) Golden Retrievers to determine if the same gender-stereotyping trends occurring in humans also appeared in dog names. Names were taken from a website of the most popular Golden Retriever names in English speaking countries. Both male and female dogs had names ending in letters and phonemes characteristic of their respective human male and female counterparts. Female dogs had more syllables in their names than male dogs and a higher percentage of male dogs had one syllable names. We conclude that the similarities between human and dog naming practices reflect a pervasive gendered naming phonology.     

Generational Differences in Gender Attitudes Between Parents and Grown Offspring

This study examined generational differences in gender attitudes between parents and grown offspring, including the extent to which these differences vary in families with daughters vs families with sons and in African American vs European American families. Participants included 158 African American and European American men and women (aged 22 to 49 years), their mothers, and their fathers (N?=?474) recruited predominantly through purchased telephone lists. Participants completed a self-report measure of gender attitudes toward marital and childrearing roles. Mixed method ANOVAs revealed offspring were less traditional than parents, although there were greater generational differences in attitudes between mothers and daughters and in European American families. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for family roles and relationships.     

Gender Differences in Responding to Conflict in the Workplace: Evidence from a Large Sample of Working Adults

This investigation tested for gender effects in conflict behaviors by examining the ratings made by the bosses, peers, and subordinates of over 2,000 working adults participating in leadership development programs conducted in the U.S.; the effects of two confounding factors—age and organizational status—were controlled in all analyses. Consistent with predictions derived from a gender role analysis, women were rated as significantly more likely to engage in almost every constructive behavior. Also as predicted, men were rated as more likely to engage in active destructive behaviors. Rater gender had no effect for peers and subordinates, but female bosses made more positive ratings of targets than male bosses. In general, bosses rated targets somewhat higher on passive responses.     

Gender Differences in Emotional Closeness Between Preschool Children and Their Mothers

The emotional closeness between mothers andtheir children was examined to determine if motherdaughter pairs exhibit closer emotional relationshipsthan mother son pairs. Forty-one mother childpredominantly Caucasian dyads were videotaped during asemistructured play setting. The children were 4 (10males and 10 females) and 5 years of age (10 males and11 females). Emotional closeness was defined as physical proximity, mutual eye contact, and global levelof enjoyment. Results demonstrated that compared toboys, girls were physically closer to their mothers,engaged in more mutual eye contact with their mothers, and were rated higher on global enjoyment.Results are consistent with Chodorow's theory thatgender identity development is related to the emotionalrelationships that develop between children and their mothers.     

中澳管理者人格类型的性别差异研究

采用MBTI对中国和澳大利亚管理者人格类型的性别差异进行了比较研究.结果表明,在人格的维度、维度组合、类型上,澳大利亚管理者比中国管理者有更大的性别差异;而两国男性管理者在人格的维度、维度组合、类型上的差异比两国女性管理者的差异更大.研究同时发现,中国男、女管理者人格类型的分布都较集中,澳大利亚男、女管理者的人格类型分布都较均衡.     

Few Gender Differences Exist Between Women and Men with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is generally considered to be a women's health issue, but the illness occurs also in men. The research objective of this study was to determine if illness patterns and functional status differed between the sexes. Because our own data showed that women with CFS have significantly more comorbid fibromyalgia or multiple chemical sensitivity than men, we eliminated patients with these comorbid conditions from our evaluation. Women with CFS were quite similar to men with CFS in terms of demographics, psychiatric status, functional status, and assessments of disability. Women reported more infectious/flu-like symptoms (represented by a factor derived from factor analysis) than men, but these differences were insignificant after controlling for other variables. Cluster analysis revealed that women were more likely than men to fall in the cluster characterized by symptom severity. Differences found were those of degree rather than of type; strikingly different illness patterns—suggestive of different pathophysiological processes between the sexes—were not found.     

Grammatical Gender in Speech Production: Evidence from Czech

Three experiments demonstrate gender congruency effects (i.e., naming times of a picture are faster when the name of the target picture and a distractor noun are gender congruent) in Czech. In the first experiment, subjects named the pictures by producing gender-marked demonstrative pronouns and a noun. In the second and third experiments, subjects produced a gender-marked numeral (marked with a suffix) plus a noun. Two types of such suffixes exist in Czech. Some numerals vary in nominative singular with gender, others do not. The results show significant gender congruency effects in all experiments. They suggest that gender congruency effects can be obtained not only with free, but also with bound morphemes. In the second and third experiment the effect only emerged when the suffix was gender-marked (as opposed to gender-invariant), supporting the view that the gender congruency effect is due to competition at the level of phonological forms rather than at the grammatical level.     

Two Routes to Grammatical Gender: Evidence from Hebrew

Access to grammatical gender in Hebrew was examined using gender decisions and grammaticality judgments. In gender decisions, and in rejecting agreement violations, the role of gender-marking regularity was robust; irregular feminine nouns were classified more slowly and produced more errors than did regular masculine nouns. These same exception nouns, however, produced radically different results when they appeared as part of a grammatical phrase. In this context, irregular nouns were processed as quickly and accurately as were regular nouns. These findings are interpreted within a model containing two routes to grammatical gender: one that involves an abstract gender node, and another that is form-based and is assumed to play a greater role in recovery from agreement errors. We also argue that there are cross-linguistic variations in the availability and speed of the form-based route to gender. Finally, we caution that under some circumstances grammatical gender may also be retrieved through a variety of heuristics that do not necessarily reflect the normal mechanisms of access to gender.     

Typical Dreams: Stability and Gender Differences

Although the variability of dream content is large, typical dream themes that occur quite often and are reported by many people can be identified (e.g., being chased, falling, flying, failing an examination, being unable to find a toilet or restroom). The present study is an investigation of the stability of the rank order of the dream themes and of gender differences in the content of dreams. The authors administered A. L. Zadra and T. A. Nielsen's (1997) Typical Dream Questionnaire to 444 participants. The findings indicated that most of the 55 dream themes occurred at least once in most of the participants' lifetimes. In addition, the correlation coefficients for the rank order of the themes were very high; that is, the relative frequencies were stable. The gender differences in the present study were in line with content analytic findings; for example, men reported dreams about physical aggression more often than did women. Overall, previous research and the present data indicate that available research results of the measurement of typical dream themes are reliable and valid. The question of the meaning of these themes or the relationship between typical dream contents and waking life experiences, however, has not yet been answered and is open to future research.     

Rape Perception Differences Between Japanese and American College Students: On the Mediating Influence of Gender Role Traditionality

This study was designed to examine the differences in rape perceptions between Japanese and American college students. It was found that the Japanese minimized the seriousness of rapes, blamed the victims, and excused the rapists more than did the Americans. Cross-cultural differences in the gender role traditionality (GRT) were found to mediate these differences. GRT-mediated tendencies for increases in the intimacy between the victim and the perpetrator to be associated with increases in rape minimization and victim blame were also found. These latter tendencies were found to be greater among the Japanese than among the Americans. Gender differences in rape perception were also found among the Japanese participants.     

In Search of Gender Recency: Evidence from the Production of Pronouns

This study investigated whether retrieval of a noun's grammatical gender benefits from having retrieved that information recently. In response to picture stimuli, participants produced gender-marked pronouns under various priming conditions. The primes differed in that they either necessitated retrieval of grammatical gender (indefinite noun phrase/pronoun) or did not (noun); when they required gender retrieval, they varied in whether they involved access to the same morpheme (pronoun) or a different morpheme (indefinite noun phrase). Relative to an unprimed condition, faster responses were obtained in each condition. Pronoun primes facilitated pronoun naming more than the other prime types, but no difference was observed between noun primes and indefinite noun phrase primes. Thus, although the experiment was sensitive to priming processes, there was no evidence for morpheme-independent gender priming.     

Gender Differences in Experimental Disclosure: Evidence, Theoretical Explanations, and Avenues for Future Research

Interest in emotional expression is long-standing. Given well-established gender differences in expressivity, it is surprising that researchers have not consistently examined gender as a potential moderator of outcome in the context of experimental disclosure studies. This article comments on Range and Jenkins’ (2010) research recommendations in light of the suggestion that males evidence greater benefit of disclosure than females and three gender theories: gender schema theory, social role theory, and gender socialization theory. Further avenues for research are also presented, including the examination of gender differences in subjective, expressive and physiologic indicators of emotion during disclosure. Such data could elucidate mechanisms by which persons of different genders or persons with different schemata/ social roles/ socialization histories differ on pre/ post disclosure outcomes.     

Gender,Gender Roles,and Personality: Gender Differences in the Prediction of Coping and Psychological Symptoms

Path models of the effects of gender, gender roles, and personality variables (achievement and affiliation orientation, locus of control, empathy) on coping and symptoms were tested to explore the risk and protective effects of gender roles and personality on psychological symptoms, and to test whether or not gender roles or personality accounted for gender differences in coping and symptoms. In a sample of university undergraduates (35% Asian American, 59% European American or Caucasian, 6% other ethnic/racial background), masculinity predicted lower depression but higher antisocial and substance use problems, whereas femininity predicted lower antisocial and substance use problems. Personality variables did not account for the effects of gender or gender roles on coping or symptoms, but rather gender roles and personality each predicted unique variance in those variables. Significant gender differences in the relations among gender roles and personality emerged; however, there were no gender differences in the relations between coping and symptoms. Findings highlight the importance of studying gender differences in the effects of gender roles and personality on coping and symptoms, because it appears that gender roles and personality operate differently for males and females.     

Gender Differences in Positive and Negative Feelings Between Adolescents and Their Fathers and Mothers

Given the connections between feelings and well-being within the family, we addressed gender differences and similarities of feelings within the family. We explored adolescents’, mothers’, and fathers’ positive and negative affect within a community sample of 224 families from the southeast of the United States. Adolescents ranged in age from 12 to 19 years. Findings suggest more gender differences in positive and negative affect for parental gender (i.e., mothers versus fathers) than for adolescent gender (i.e., boys versus girls). There were more consistent associations within the family for positive affect as opposed to negative affect. We discussed the results in the context of gender differences within the family within the family systems theoretical perspective.     

Gender Differences in Family Stories: Moderating Influence of Parent Gender Role and Child Gender

One hundred and twenty families and their 4-year-old children participated in a study on family stories. The participants were primarily White (91%), with the remainder Black (4%), Hispanic (2%), and Asian (2%). The parents were primarily middle class and upper class, with approximately 5% identifying themselves as from a lower socioeconomic background. Parents were asked to tell their son or daughter stories about when the parent was growing up. All parents completed measures of child behavior and a subset of parents completed the Bem Sex Role inventory. Stories were coded for the strength of affiliation, achievement, and autonomy themes. No gender differences were found for parents or child in the strength of affiliation themes. Fathers told stories with stronger autonomy themes than did mothers, and sons were more likely to hear stories with themes of autonomy than were daughters. An interaction was found between gender type of parent and gender of child for strength of achievement theme. Traditional gender-typed parents told stories with stronger achievement themes to their sons, and nontraditional gender-typed parents told stories with stronger achievement themes to their daughters. Exploratory analyses were conducted examining the relations among story theme, parent gender type, and child behavior. Higher levels of externalizing behaviors were found in boys whose fathers endorsed strong masculine attitudes, but told stories with weak achievement themes. Higher levels of internalizing behaviors were found in girls whose mothers told stories with strong affiliation themes, but endorsed weak feminine attitudes. Family stories are proposed to be one aspect of socialization that includes an interaction between child and parent characteristics.