GENDER
DIFFERENCES?
How do you think the sexes differ in the coping mechanism a male or female is likely to adopt for stressful situations? Do you think there is a formula to predict who will act what way? Is there any pattern at all?
FEMALES AND MALES:
The data varies. Personal anecdotes vary. People vary, for that matter, especially between the sexes. So, do men and women have different responses to stress? Physiologically: No. But the coping strategies adopted by each sex are not identical.
In general, men and women differ in how they deal with stress, yet we all know that emotions and actions vary day to day and from stressful event to event. In general, women are more stressed than men (Wada, 1998). Females tend to get more social support then men when stressed, although both men and women reported using passive escape as a coping mechanism equally. High stressful people tended to adopt more patience than low stressful people and low stressful persons adopted passive escape (denying any problem, ignoring it, etc.) more often than high stressful persons (Wada, 1998). This perhaps is another way to look at coping mechanisms: high stressful persons and low stressful persons. Other findings have shown that to some degree there is a dichotomy, but as well, men and women may use coping strategies consistent with the emotional and instrumental needs of a given stressor at different times. (Hamilton & Fagot, 1988). The same conclusion that women report more stress than men, was reached from this study as well (Hamilton & Fagot, 1988).
If a difference is to be noted, Stone & Neal (1984) suggest that men are more likely to take direct action than were females, who were more likely to use distraction, relaxation, religion, and other strategies. As well, men tend to use problem-based focusing while women tend to use emotional-based coping.
(Friedman lecture, 2001) Notice that the key word here is TEND and that whatever works best for you is what you should do, regardless of your sex.
