Category: Gender Difference

It seems that women become addicted to cocaine more easily than men and find it harder to give up. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Biology of Sex Differences reinforces this position by showing that the motivation of female rats to work for cocaine is much higher than males.

Researchers from the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, University of Michigan, found that rats bred to have an elevated stress response and increased impulsiveness are more easily trained to reward themselves with cocaine. They are also more determined, than similar rats with low impulsivity and lower stress responses, in pursuit of their next fix.

While cocaine dependency has something to do with thrill seeking and impulsivity, it is also affected by the differences between males and females. At a low dose, for both sets of rats, it was the females who were quickest to learn self-administration and were the most willing to work harder for their next fix. At higher doses, the differences in behaviour between the male and female rats were less apparent.

Whilst certain personality types are perhaps predisposed towards drug addiction Dr Jennifer Cummings explained, "An individual's sex continues to increase the likelihood of drug abuse."

Journal Reference:

1. Jennifer A. Cummings, Brooke A. Gowl, Christel Westenbroek, Sarah M. Clinton, Huda Akil, Jill B. Becker. Effects of a selectively bred novelty-seeking phenotype on the motivation to take cocaine in male and female rats. Biology of Sex Differences, 2011; 2: 3 DOI: 10.1186/2042-6410-2-3

Communication technologies that help people stay connected to the workplace are often seen as solutions to balancing work and family life. However, a new study in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior suggests there may be a "dark side" to the use of these technologies for workers' health — and these effects seem to differ for women and men.

Using data from a national survey of American workers, University of Toronto researchers asked study participants how often they were contacted outside the workplace by phone, e-mail, or text about work-related matters. They found that women who were contacted frequently by supervisors, coworkers, or clients reported higher levels of psychological distress. In contrast, men who received frequent work-related contact outside of normal work hours were less affected by it.

"Initially, we thought women were more distressed by frequent work contact because it interfered with their family responsibilities more so than men," says lead author Paul Glavin, a PhD candidate in sociology at U of T. "However, this wasn't the case. We found that women are able to juggle their work and family lives just as well as men, but they feel more guilty as a result of being contacted. This guilt seems to be at the heart of their distress."

The findings show that many women feel guilty dealing with work issues at home even when the work-related contact doesn't interfere with their family lives. Men, on the other hand, are less likely to experience guilt when responding to work-related issues at home.

Co-author Scott Schieman says the findings suggest that men and women may still encounter different expectations over the boundaries separating work and family life — and these different expectations may have unique emotional consequences.

"Guilt seems to play a pivotal role in distinguishing women's work-family experiences from men's," says Schieman, a U of T sociology professor and lead investigator of the larger study that funded this research. "While women have increasingly taken on a central role as economic providers in today's dual-earner households, strong cultural norms may still shape ideas about family responsibilities. These forces may lead some women to question or negatively evaluate their family role performance when they're trying to navigate work issues at home."

Journal Reference:

1. P. Glavin, S. Schieman, S. Reid. Boundary-Spanning Work Demands and Their Consequences for Guilt and Psychological Distress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 2011; 52 (1): 43 DOI: 10.1177/0022146510395023

 The employed and self-employed enjoy much better sleep than those out of work, according to Understanding Society, the world's largest longitudinal household study. Those who are unemployed are over 40% more likely to report difficulty staying asleep than those in employment (having controlled for age and gender differences). However, job satisfaction affects the quality of sleep with 33% of the most dissatisfied employees report poor sleep quality compared to only 18% of the most satisfied.

Analysis of the early data from Understanding Society based on 14,000 UK households found that overall the best sleep was reported by people with higher levels of education and by married people. The type of work a person does also impacts on sleep, with those in routine occupations reporting worse sleep than those in professional occupations.

Professor Sara Arber at the University of Surrey who analysed the findings said: "Given the links between sleep, social and economic circumstances and poor health found in this and other surveys, health promotion campaigns should be open to the possibility that the increased incidence of sleep problems among the disadvantaged in society may be one factor leading to their poorer health."

Understanding Society is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and managed by the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex. It follows 40,000 UK household over many years, and sleep data will be collected annually.

Initial analysis of the sleep data collected in the first survey also found that:

Men and women

• women are more likely to report problems getting to sleep within 30 minutes, 24% on three or more nights a week, compared to 18% of men
• problems getting to sleep on three or more nights per week are particularly high under age 25, then decline slightly for men with age, but increase with age for women
• half of men and women over age 65 report sleep maintenance problems on three or more nights a week, compared to under a fifth of men and a third of women under 25
• More men than women report that snoring or coughing disturbs their sleep, 30% of men and 20% of women more than once a week
• women are more likely to negatively rate their sleep quality, 26% compared to 20% of men

Sleep medication

• one in 10 people report taking sleeping medication on three or more nights a week (9% of men and 10% of women)
• 25% of women and 15% of men over 85 report taking sleeping medication on three or more nights a week

Researchers working on Understanding Society have also examined the data from the perspective of work and sleep. 15,000 employees were asked questions about their work and sleep patterns.

Work and length of sleep

• 14% of men and women working part-time sleep for more than eight hours per night, declining to about 6% of men and 10% of women for those working more than 30 hours per week, and remaining at this level even for people working very long hours (more than 48 hours per week)
• However, for people of both genders working long hours brings an increase in shorter sleep periods: 14% of women and 11% of men working more than 48 hours sleep less than six hours per night
• Poor sleep quality is more frequently reported by long-hours workers and especially among women: 31% of long-hours women report poor sleep quality compared to only 23% of those who work 31-48 hours per week
• Looking at these findings altogether suggests that the increase in shorter sleep periods for those working long hours is not only due to time constraints but other pressures such as stress

Managerial duties

• Only 6% of managers report more than eight hours sleep per night compared to 11% of those without managerial responsibilities

Job satisfaction and sleep

• 14% of respondents least satisfied with their jobs reported regularly sleeping for less than six hours per night, compared with only 8% of those most satisfied with work

The first set of data from Understanding Society is now available for researchers to use in their analysis. It can be accessed via the Economic and Social Data Service.

According to a study conducted at the Department of Pedagogy of the University of Granada, about six out of ten male drug-abusers direct some type of violence against their intimate partners. Thus, the study revealed a high rate of domestic violence — both pysical and psychological — by male drug-abusers against women. The study also detailed the most recurrent forms of abuse, as well as the variables associated to them.

The study revealed that between 6.5 and 72.4% of the population admits to having committed some form of violence against their partner. The less prevalent conduct was "I forced her to abort against her will" (6.5%), and the most prevailing being "I show total disregard for her needs, wishes and interests." In addition, 63.5% of the respondants ensured that they wanted to know what their partner makes at all times of the day, their hours, whom they speak to…." The rate of physical violence oscillates between 6.5% and 21%, while psychological violence varies between 7.3% and 72.4%.

The study revealed that 51% of male drug-abusers are aware of their committing violence against their partners and, although they know that such violence has a deep impact on their partners, they are not willing to break off, or to let their spouses abandon them, thus resorting to whatever strategies are necessary.

Additionaly, psychological violence is more frequent than physicial violence in this collective. The most representative forms of violence being, by order of incidence: personal control, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, emotional blackmail out of guilt, disregard for their ideology or religion, abuse based on gender roles, emotional blackmail through enforcement, economic abuse, emotional blackmail out of fear, loss of personal control and social isolation.

This research was carried out by Amelia Matute López, and conducted by professor Andrés Soriano Díaz. The author took a sample of 153 men aged between 20 and 65 years, attending some of rehabilitation units in Andalusia; all of them were cocaine, alcohol, heroin or heroin-cocaine abusers. The study was a questionnaire-based prevalence survey of spousal abuse, containing also some questions to obtain some information on the variables selected.

The research conducted at the University of Granada revealed that 78.8% of the couples ended in separation, although such separation was generally temporary. In most of the cases, the couple ended getting back together. "Despite their negative effect on their health and well-being, women remain in this type of relationship as a result of the pressure exerted by their male partners and of the romantic myths of unconditional and imbalanced love" -Amelia Matute states.

This research contributes to better understanding the phenomenon of gender-based violence, in a sector of the population that had not been previously studied. In Spain, there are some studies based on the general population, but not on specific sectors of the population that could be considered of high-risk, such as it is the case of drug-abusers, as this study reveals.

Opposites don't always attract. A study from North Carolina State University shows that participants are happier — and perform better — when the electronic helpers used in online training programs resemble the participants themselves.

"It is important that the people who design online training programs understand that one size does not fit all," says Dr. Lori Foster Thompson, an associate professor of psychology at NC State and co-author of the study. "Efforts to program helper agents that may be tailored to individuals can yield very positive results for the people taking the training."

Online training programs are becoming increasingly common, and are used for everything from developing work skills in employees to teaching children basic math skills. Many of these programs utilize electronic training agents, or "helpers," to give feedback to users and help them through the coursework. But the usefulness of these helpers can vary, or even be annoying. Remember Clippy, the animated paper clip, from Microsoft?

NC State researchers set out to determine what characteristics make a training helper more effective. "We know from existing research on human interaction that we like people who are like us," Foster Thompson says. "We wanted to see whether that held true for these training agents."

The researchers evaluated the superficial similarities between 257 study participants and helper agents in an online training course, and assessed each participant's communication style and their similarity to the helper's communication style. Superficial similarities included the gender and race of the participant. Assessment of each participant's communication style was determined by asking participants how they would give feedback to others in various situations — such as helping someone with classwork. Researchers also asked participants how similar they felt the helper's communication style was to their own style.

The researchers found that people reported being more engaged and focused on their training when the helper was portrayed by an image that matched both their race and gender. Furthermore, the researchers found that participants liked the helper more — and learned more from the program — when the helper's communication style matched their own in regard to a very specific aspect of giving feedback.

Essentially, when giving feedback, some people give individual performance evaluations by comparing the individual to the group (e.g., you are in the top 10 percent), while others compare an individual's performance only against that individual's previous record (e.g., you did much better this time). Study participants performed much better when the helper's feedback style matched their own in this regard.

The study also showed that perception could be more important than reality in participant performance. "We found that people liked the helper more, were more engaged and viewed the program more favorably when they perceived the helper agent as having a feedback style similar to their own — regardless of whether that was actually true," Foster Thompson says.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by newsPsychology staff) from materials provided by North Carolina State University.

Journal Reference:

1. Tara S. Behrend and Lori Foster Thompson. Similarity Effects in Online Training: Effects with Computerized Trainer Agents. Computers in Human Behavior, (in press)

What makes scientific topics personally relevant and thus interesting to girls? Researchers at the University of Luxembourg found that the reason why girls are less interested in science than boys is that scientific topics are commonly presented in a male context. When scientific concepts in physics, information technology, and statistics were presented in a female friendly way — as for example relating to online shopping or cosmetic surgery — the mean level of girls' interest rose. However, the boys' interest in these topics simultaneously decreased.

"Scientific topics presented in a context that is stereotypically considered to be feminine are relevant for girls' gender identity per se. An engagement in these topics does not represent a threat to their self-perception and self-symbolisation as being feminine," the researchers note in their article in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. This study was conducted with boys and girls in Luxembourgish state schools. The students were presented with the scenario of visiting a new school and asked to rate the interestingness of topics that would be taught in class.

Girls showed considerably more interest in topics such as "how a laser is used in cosmetic surgery" and "how to calculate the probability of a miscarriage" than in topics such as "how to calculate the force a rocket needs to take off" and "how to calculate the probability of a car accident." One of the authors, Dr. Sylvie Kerger, said that girls were more interested in social and real contexts such as the decline of forests whereas boys clearly found mechanics and technology more compelling.

"However," she added, "establishing gender-specific science classes might not work for every student." She suggests that schools should offer science modules dealing with the same concepts but presenting them in different ways.

The authors Dr. Sylvie Kerger, Prof. Romain Martin and Asst.-Prof. Martin Brunner lecture at the Center for Educational Measurement and Applied Cognitive Science (EMACS) at the University of Luxembourg in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg.

Journal Reference:

1. Sylvie Kerger, Romain Martin, Martin Brunner. How can we enhance girls’ interest in scientific topics?British Journal of Educational Psychology, 2011; DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-8279.2011.02019.x

Despite a long-standing requirement for medical device makers to include women in studies they submit to the Food and Drug Administration for device approval, only a few include enough women or analyze how the devices work specifically in women, according to research reported in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

"Women and men differ in their size, bleeding tendencies, and other factors that are directly relevant to how the devices will work," said Rita F. Redberg, M.D., M.Sc., senior author of the study and professor of medicine and director of Women's Cardiovascular Services at the University of California, San Francisco. "It is likely that the benefits and risks of devices are different in women. Despite the directive to find out, it isn't happening."

In 1994, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health instituted a policy that all FDA submissions seeking new device approval must contain:

• A gender-bias statement explaining whether the proportion of men and women in the study reflects the proportion of men and women who have the condition being treated.
• Differences in the safety and effectiveness of the device in women.

In their analysis, researchers reviewed 123 studies contained in the pre-market approval applications for 78 high-risk cardiovascular devices (the category that includes heart valves and implanted defibrillators) that gained FDA approval between 2000 and 2007. In 28 percent of the studies, FDA summaries of the evidence didn't report the gender of study participants. In those that did, men made up an average of 67 percent.

The investigators found that the required gender-bias statement was present in only 41 percent of the studies. Of studies that included the statement, 94 percent discussed examining their results by sex, and 26 percent reported differences in device safety or effectiveness between men and women.

In the studies that omitted the gender-bias statement, only 11 percent presented any gender-specific results or discussion. Studies involving fewer than 50 patients were not included in the analysis of sex-specific reporting.

Because non-approved pre-market applications are not publicly available, the researchers could not determine whether these contained a similar percentage of gender-bias statements.

In approved applications, the reviewers found instances in which researchers used inaccurate grounds to exclude women. In some cases, the proportion of women with a heart condition was understated. In others, applicants declared their gender breakdown to be equivalent to previous studies without acknowledging that the previous studies included a disproportionately low number of women.

Between 2000 and 2007, the proportion of women enrolled in studies or the number of successful applications that included the gender-bias statement didn't increase.

"We found no encouraging trends," Redberg said. "Failure to include women in clinical trials has been a big problem for a long time and it isn't improving, so further action is needed."

She suggests strict enforcement of the current requirements, including sending applications back without review until the required statements are submitted.

Women should ask directly about the data if a device is recommended to them, Redberg said. "Ask how many women it was tested in and how the results looked in those women. Unfortunately, all too often we approve devices based on results in men and assume they will be the same in women. That is not a reasonable assumption, even if a device is being marketed specifically to women."

Journal Reference:

1. Sanket S. Dhruva, Lisa A. Bero and Rita F. Redberg. Gender Bias in Studies for Food and Drug Administration Premarket Approval of Cardiovascular Devices. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes, March 1 2011 DOI: 10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.110.958215

Freshmen on the eve of finals and graduate students staring down a thesis committee may not feel this way, but the privilege of obtaining an advanced education correlates with decades of lower blood pressure, according to a study led by a public health researcher at Brown University. The benefit appears to be greater for women than for men.

Eric Loucks, assistant professor of community health, says the analysis of nearly 4,000 patient records from the 30-year Framingham Offspring Study may help explain a widely documented association in developed countries between education and lower risk of heart disease. The paper was published online in the open access journal BMC Public Health.

"Does education influence heart disease?" said Loucks, who came to Brown in 2009 from McGill University in Montreal, where he did his analysis. "One of the ways to get at that is to see if education is related to the biological underpinnings of heart disease, and one of those is blood pressure."

The difference education makes

Controlling just for age, Loucks and his co-authors found that women who completed 17 years of schooling or more had systolic blood pressure readings that were, on average, 3.26 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) lower than women who did not finish high school. Women who went to college, but did not pursue graduate studies, had a 2 mmHg benefit compared to less educated women. For men, going to graduate school versus not finishing high school made a 2.26 mmHg difference, with a lesser benefit for going to college.

Even after controlling for influences such as smoking, drinking, obesity and blood pressure medication, the benefit persisted, although at a lower level (graduate school gave a benefit of 2.86 mmHg for women and 1.25 mmHg for men).

Loucks then went even further in his analysis by indexing the blood pressure readings to make them all equal at the beginning of the 1971-2001 Framingham study period. This statistical maneuver allowed him to determine whether the analysis measured a static difference apparent early on in life or whether the differences increased at all over time. For women, they did. The most educated group retained a 2.53 mmHg benefit over the least educated. In men, the difference was much less, only 0.34 mmHg.

That the gender differences are so pronounced and appear to become more so as life goes on suggests that education may have a greater impact on women's health over their lifetime than on men's health, Loucks said. That could be because of the correlation between low educational attainment and other health risk factors found in other studies of women.

"Women with less education are more likely to be experiencing depression, they are more likely to be single parents, more likely to be living in impoverished areas and more likely to be living below the poverty line," Loucks said.

One caveat, he said, is that the population in the study, drawn from the suburban community of Framingham, Mass., decades ago, is disproportionately white and that the conclusions might not generalize to other races.

Education and public health

Loucks said the study adds to a chorus of others suggesting that policy makers who want to improve public health and are struggling to do it in other ways, might want to look at improving access to education.

"Socioeconomic gradients in health are very complex," he said. "But there's the question of what do we do about it. One of the big potential areas to intervene on is education."

In addition to Loucks, other authors of the study are researchers Michal Abrahamowicz of McGill, Yongling Xiao of the University of South Australia, and John Lynch of the University of Bristol. Funding for the research came from the Canadian Institutes of Health.

Journal Reference:

1. Eric B. Loucks, Michal Abrahamowicz, Yongling Xiao, and John W. Lynch. Associations of education with 30 year life course blood pressure trajectories: Framingham Offspring Study. BMC Public Health, (in press)

Many studies have suggested that males tend to be more physically and verbally aggressive than females. According to a new study, to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, it may not be the case that women are less competitive than men — they may just be using a different strategy to come out ahead. Specifically, women may rely more on indirect forms of aggression, such as social exclusion.

To investigate how men and women respond when faced with a social threat, psychological scientist Joyce F. Benenson of Emmanuel College and Harvard University, along with her colleagues, asked volunteers to play a game against two hypothetical partners in which they accumulated points for money. Volunteers had the option of playing by themselves (compete-alone option), forming an alliance with one of the opponents, or cooperating with both of the opponents (in this strategy, they would avoid competition but split profits three ways).

During the game, some of the volunteers were confronted with the possibility of social exclusion. When the compete-alone option was described, volunteers were told that by selecting this option, they would "run the risk of being excluded by the two others." The description of the alliance option included the statement, "If you and your partner win, then the third player will be excluded and will not win any points."

The results revealed that when volunteers received the standard instructions — without the social exclusion clauses — there was no difference among male and female volunteers in the number of times they chose to form an alliance with another player. However, when the exclusionary instructions were used, female participants chose the alliance option more often than did male volunteers.

"As their primary competitive strategy to combat any social threat, females may attempt to form an exclusionary alliance, whereas males may endeavor to unilaterally and directly dominate an opponent," the authors write. Women may be more sensitive than men to social exclusion, and when they feel threatened by the prospect of being left out, a woman's first response may be to socially exclude a third party.

Preemptive social exclusion appears to be a valuable strategy for women because it allows them to protect their relationships by keeping an outsider at bay. Benenson points out that this may require a re-evaluation of presumed sex differences in competitiveness. She comments, "The same-sex social worlds of boys and girls and men and women then differ in that females have to worry about alienating others, whereas males worry about getting beaten up."

NewsPsychology (Feb. 24, 2011) — A study led by the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center shows being a woman may not increase your risk of dying from treatment for a severe heart attack.

U-M researchers and colleagues in the Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium found women who received treatment such as an angioplasty had higher unadjusted in-hospital heart attack deaths.

But these differences appear to be related to women’s ages and additional health problems — not gender, says study lead author Elizabeth Jackson, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of internal medicine at the U-M Health System and member of the Women’s Heart Program.

“When we adjusted for factors such as age and co-morbidities like hypertension and diabetes, women had similar mortality rates at the time of the heart attack as men,” says Jackson.

“But women still appear to be more likely to have a bleeding episode in the hospital that requires a transfusion or vascular complications,” she says.

The five-year study published in the American Heart Journal showed that compared with men, women were older with more co-morbidities — a medical condition in addition to the primary disease — at the time of treatment.

Women account for about one-third of patients who undergo procedures such as percutaneous coronary interventions to clear the clogged arteries causing a heart attack.

Researchers examined the outcomes of 8,771 patients undergoing a procedure for an acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction, commonly known as a severe heart attack. Patients were part of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium registry, a physician-led quality improvement collaborative that is supported by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network.

Previous investigations using other registries have found women had higher in-hospital mortality rates than men, but recent advancements in treatment changed how doctors care for these patients and the team wanted to re-investigate with more current data, says Jackson.

“Overall, there have been tremendous improvements in the care of both men and women who suffer a heart attack, but further research on everyday patients, such as those in the registry, is needed to be able to continue improving our level of care,” says Jackson.

Cardiovascular disease kills nearly twice as many women in the United States than all types of cancer, including breast cancer, according to the American Heart Association.

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by newsPsychology staff) from materials provided by University of Michigan Health System. The original article was written by Heather Guenther.

Journal Reference:

1. Elizabeth A. Jackson, Mauro Moscucci, Dean E. Smith, David Share, Simon Dixon, Adam Greenbaum, Paul M. Grossman, Hitinder S. Gurm. The association of sex with outcomes among patients undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention for ST elevation myocardial infarction in the contemporary era: Insights from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium (BMC2). American Heart Journal, 2011; 161 (1): 106 DOI: 10.1016/j.ahj.2010.09.030

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of NewsPsychology ( or its staff.