Subjective Anxiety and Behavioral Avoidance: Gender, Gender Role, and Perceived Confirmability of Self-report

Authors

Carmen P. McLean, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Debra A. Hope, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

ORCID IDs

Debra A. Hope

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

6-2010

Citation

Journal of Anxiety Disorders 24:5 (June 2010), pp. 494–502.

doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.03.006

Comments

Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. Used by permission.

Abstract

Commonly reported gender effects for differential vulnerability for anxiety may relate to gender socialization processes. The present study examined the relationship between gender role and fear under experimental conditions designed to elicit accurate fear reporting. Undergraduate students (N = 119) completed several self-report measures and a behavioral avoidance task (BAT) with a tarantula while wearing a heart rate monitor. Gender roles were operationalized as instrumentality and expressiveness, as measured by the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1975). As expected, women reported greater subjective anxiety and were more avoidant of the tarantula than men. Regardless of gender, low levels of instrumentality were associated with greater avoidance of the tarantula. The hypothesis that men underreport fear compared to women and that gender role differences underlie this reporting bias was not supported. In spite of a ceiling effect on the BAT, results of this study confirm the relevance of gender role in understanding gender effects in fear and anxiety.