Gender Differences in Coping with Stress (AQA A Level Psychology): Revision Note

Gender differences & stress management

• Research suggests that males and females respond differently to acute stress, and that each gender copes differently with chronic stress and that each gender prefers different types of social support during stress

Response to stress

• Taylor et al. (2000) argue that fight or flight does not describe the female stress response well, as most research into this response has been conducted with male participants

  • From an evolutionary perspective, fight or flight is disadvantageous for a female, because confronting or fleeing from a predator would make it difficult for her to protect her offspring

• A biological stress response theory that suggests, especially in females, stress can lead to behaviours focused on:

  • tending – nurturing and protecting offspring or vulnerable individuals

  • befriending – seeking social support from others (especially other women) to form protective alliances

• Oxytocin is a hormone produced by males and females which promotes feelings of goodwill and affiliation with others, and has a role in the formation of the mother-infant attachment bond, also helping the body recover more quickly from the physiological effects of stress

  • Taylor et al. (2002) found that higher levels of oxytocin were linked with lower cortisol levels, and there was also a quicker recovery of the HPA system, as the female sex hormone oestrogen increases the effects of oxytocin while male hormones (androgens) reduce them, so oxytocin effects are stronger in women

• A social learning theory explanation is that females are socialised to take care of family and friends in circumstances that seem to pose a risk 

Coping strategies

• If the stress becomes chronic, females will favour emotion-focused coping

• This means females aim to manage their emotional response to the stressor rather than change the stressor itself. These strategies might include:

  • seeking social support

  • engaging in relaxation or self-care

  • using distraction, venting, or reframing thoughts

  • practising mindfulness or emotional expression

• Males tend to favour problem-focused coping

• This involves direct action to eliminate or reduce the source of stress. These might include:

  • identifying practical solutions

  • taking control of the situation

  • making plans or setting goals

  • seeking information or resources

Social support

• Females tend to prefer an empathetic listener, while males often prefer practical assistance and information

• Generally, females also have more social support networks than males, which is linked to their tend-and-befriend response

• The distinction between problem- and emotion-focused coping was first made by Lazarus & Folkman (1984)

Research which investigates gender differences in coping with stress

• Matud (2004) surveyed 2,816 people and found that women reported more family-related stressors and men more work-related ones, but women also perceived their stressors as more negative and less controllable, and their coping style was more emotion-focused than that of men

  • This suggests gender differences in coping strategies could be due to men and women experiencing different stressors, rather than reflecting something fundamental about being a man or a woman, as role constraint theory predicts

• Tamres et al. (2002) carried out a meta-analysis of 26 studies comparing the coping strategies of men and women, and found that women were significantly more likely than men to seek social support, a coping method that is a central part of the befriending response to stressful situations

  • Feldman et al. (2007) measured oxytocin in women during pregnancy and soon after they had given birth, and found that women with the highest oxytocin levels formed stronger bonds with their newborn babies

Evaluation of gender differences in coping with stress

Strengths

• Understanding the gender differences in coping with stress allows us to investigate their efficacy further (as the personal control men take over stressors is effective, but so is women’s use of social networks) and select the best coping strategies from each

• Luckow et al. (1998) reviewed 26 studies of gender differences in seeking and using social support as a way of coping with stress, and found that women were much more likely to use this method in 25 of those studies

  • This suggests women strongly favour befriending as a stressful coping response, more so than men

Limitations

• Porter & Stone (1995) measured coping behaviour daily throughout a study, and found that women reported more relationship-related stressors and men more work-related ones, as other research has shown, but when this variation in stressors was accounted for there were no gender differences in coping methods

  • This suggests the choice of coping style does not depend on gender but on the nature of the stressful situation

• Many studies are retrospective, with participants thinking back to stressful occasions and recalling the methods they used to cope

  • E.g. De Ridder (2000) found that women reported using emotion-focused coping more than men, but only when recalling retrospectively

    • This difference disappeared when participants used ecological momentary assessment (EMA), a method of reporting coping strategies at regular intervals during the day, which suggests the gender difference may be an artefact of how the research is conducted

Issues & Debates

• Traditional research into stress is gender biased, as it often focuses on male participants and treats the male response as the norm

  • This leads to androcentrism, with theories like fight-or-flight failing to reflect female stress responses

  • The tend-and-befriend model offers a more balanced view, recognising biological and socialised differences in female stress behaviour

• Research into gender differences uses a nomothetic approach, seeking general laws about how men and women cope

  • This may overlook individual differences, as not all men favour problem-focused strategies and not all women prefer emotional support

  • This shows the benefit of combining nomothetic research with idiographic insight for personalised stress interventions