Gender Differences In Anxiety

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Abnormal Psychology

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Gender Differences in Anxiety

Part One

Parents have a more significant role to play in developing the emotional, behavioral and social characteristics of a child during the early ages. In the same way, parents also have an impact on the development of anxiety among their children. The overprotection of parents reduce the opportunities for children to expose to fear. Due to the reduced opportunities, the child is less accustomed to the apparent threats they would face in a situation. Those kids who are highly protected by their parents at an early stage of life, have less ability to detect a threat and he or she has not learned to cope with the difficult situations (Hudson, p. 03).

Moreover, Anxiety is adaptive for some people because it is an emotional state that gives survival strategies to cope with a difficult situation. When a person copes with a problematic situation, next, he or she will develop a mechanism for alertness. It helps an individual to deal with emergencies in the future. People gradually learn that emotions created by stressful situations fade away from the case.

Research reports show that anxiety is more common among females in comparison to males. It is evident that hormonal differences between men and women also influence the response to fear for both of the genders differently. Men are more exposed to a hormone known as androgen that causes more aggression and less taciturn when exposed to fear-provoking situations. On the other side, anxiety disorders in women are associated with hormonal changes. However, there are factors other than hormones which influence the response to fear. The gender differences also depend on the experiences. For instance, males experience more tough and rough experiences as compared to females. The repetitive situations help males to overcome fear. On the other side, girls always play safe and get lesser exposure to painful and dangerous conditions. Therefore, their response to a problematic situation is also different. In addition, the reaction towards a problem also increases the level of fear for the genders. Women are more instant to react to a fearful situation whereas males show fewer emotions to a fear. The other factors can be social opportunities and experiences, challenges, brain function and other reproductive events (Altemus, Sarvaiya and Epperson, p. 320).

Part Two

Anxiety is the most prevalent disorder among both men and women. However, it is more common among females than males. The gender difference towards fear depends upon different factors. However, there are three explanations which provide details for the gender difference. The first factor that represents difference is the biological changes between men and women. It includes the hormonal secretions in both of the genders. According to the researchers, males are more exposed to hormones which make them more hostile to any adverse situation. On the other side, the females face hormonal variations more.

Moreover, there are different societal expectations from men and women, as a result, they experience different situations. These experiences are also associated with gender roles specified to both of the genders. For instance, more exposure to challenges makes a person lessens the fear of that challenge. It can be seen in the case of boys, who are more used to pain and fear due to the experience whereas girls have been protected from those situations. Girls get panic due to less exposure. In addition, the response style difference also influences male and female in case of anxiety.

Furthermore, evidence from different sociocultural effects also shows gender differences in response to anxiety disorders. Taking the example of the United States where there are similar gender-role expectations from male and female due to which there is less difference in shyness between both of the genders. On the other side, it is different in Japanese culture, so the response also varies for both of the sexes.

Works Cited

Hudson, J. L. "Parent-child relationships in early childhood and development of anxiety & depression." RE, Tremblay, M., Boivin, R. Peters, (Eds.), Encyclopedia on earlychildhood development (2013): 1-6.

Altemus, Margaret, Nilofar Sarvaiya, and C. Neill Epperson. "Sex differences in anxiety and depression clinical perspectives." Frontiers in neuroendocrinology 35.3 (2014): 320-330.