gender differences with coping with stress

• Coping strategies used by men

  Problem solving approach
• Coping strategies used by women

  Emotional-focused approach
• The problem solving approach tackles the distal cause of stress head-on, whilst the emotional-focused approach tackles only the proximal causes of stress or the associated stressors
• Men are likely to find practical solutions to problems, whilst women tend to distract themselves and keep busy as a means of coping with stress
• Coping mechanisms of infertile males and females


  • Men found practical solutions to alleviate the stressor
  • Women more often accepted the blame and avoided directly confronting the stressor
• 'Tend and befriend'


  A coping technique particularly used by women, where they form social networks with other women from whom emotional support can be found, as well as caring and nurturing others through 'blending into' the current stressful environment
• The effects of oxytocin appear to be enhanced in females compared to males, and this may allow for the increased use of the 'tend and befriend' tactic
• The effects of oxytocin are enhanced by oestrogen but suppressed by testosterone, and therefore lead to differential rates of recovery of the HPA system after the release of cortisol
• Role constraint theory


  The different coping mechanisms used by men and women are dependent upon and specific to the types of stressors which each gender faces
• Women tend to report more problems associated with their families, and so emotion-focused methods would be a more effective method of dealing with this
• Men tend to report more work related problems, and so a practical or problem-focused method would be a more effective method of dealing with this specific situation
• Perception of control and self-efficacy


  Play a major role in gender differences in coping with stress
• Gender differences in coping with stress may be reflective of the different stressors each are exposed to
• Retrospective research


  A key problem with research into gender differences of stress coping mechanisms, as women appear to recall significantly more instances where they have used emotion-focused techniques to deal with stress, and so differences in stress coping mechanisms may only appear to be this way due to cognitive biases and differences in memory traces
• The extent of gender differences may have been overemphasised using retrospective research
• There is evidence supporting the use of the 'tend and befriend approach' at a higher rate in women than in men
• The warm and nurturing element of the tend and befriend response may be reflected in the positive correlation between post-natal oxytocin levels and the strength of a mother-infant attachment
• There may be neurochemical bases underpinning gender differences in methods of coping with stress