Sex Differences

Policy debates have focused on who can participate in or access single-sex activities or services. This article describes how science of the biology of sex is relevant to three major policy areas: parenting (including leaves), sports, and public spaces. We focus on what scientists know about sex and gender (and gender/sex, where gender and sex are intertwined), and the role of various biological factors, including hormones such as testosterone and estradiol as well as genetics, gonads, genitals, and more. The policies under debate often use “biological sex,” but this fails to account for scientific understandings of sex and gender, misrepresents sex as single-faceted and binary, and overlooks scientific consensus about the importance of gender and identity.

Boys with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) demonstrate disruptive behaviour at significantly higher rates compared to girls. Disruptive behaviour often develops as a result of negative interaction patterns within the caregiving relationship. Given the importance of parental cognitions as mediators of parental behaviour, the consideration of parent and child sex in the investigation of causal attributions regarding ADHD may, at least partially, explain sex differences in the prevalence of disruptive behaviour among children with ADHD. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of parent and child sex on parental causal attributions and reactions about ADHD and to investigate the interrelationships between these variables. The sample consisted of 317 mothers and 317 fathers of boys and girls aged 4-6, enrolled in kindergartens in Athens. A Greek version of the Parental Account of the Causes of Childhood Problems Questionnaire, which followed a vignette about a hypothetical child, displaying symptoms of ADHD was used. Half of the participants received a male and half a female version of the vignette. Results showed that the child’s sex greatly influenced parents’ causal attributions about ADHD. Higher ratings of intentionality were conferred to boys with ADHD than girls and these attributions were related to stricter responses towards boys. In contrast, parents who considered biological dysfunction as underlying ADHD, they mostly did so in the case of girls. Minimal effect of parent sex on causal attributions was found. Tο conclude, since causal attributions of intentionality relate to the response of more strictness, and since such attributions are more prevalent for boys than girls, then distorted perceptions about the etiology of ADHD in boys may be at the basis of negative interaction patterns. The increase of such interaction patterns may place boys at a more vulnerable position towards the development of secondary behaviour problems.

Previous studies on sex-differentiated mate preferences have focused on univariate analyses. However, because mate selection is inherently multidimensional, a multivariate analysis more appropriately measures sex differences in mate preferences. We used the Mahalanobis distance (D) and logistic regression to investigate sex differences in mate preferences with data secured from participants residing in 37 cultures (n = 10,153). Sex differences are large in multivariate terms, yielding an overall D = 2.41, corresponding to overlap between the sexes of just 22.8%. Moreover, knowledge of mate preferences alone affords correct classification of sex with 92.2% accuracy. Finally, pattern-wise sex differences are negatively correlated with gender equality across cultures but are nonetheless cross-culturally robust. Discussion focuses on implications in evaluating the importance and magnitude of sex differences in mate preferences.

Objectives. The current study investigated mental health literacy in an Australian sample to examine sex differences in the identification of and attitudes towards various aspects of mental illness. Method. An online questionnaire was completed by 373 participants (M = 34.87 years). Participants were randomly assigned either a male or female version of a vignette depicting an individual exhibiting the symptoms of one of three types of mental illness (depression, anxiety, or psychosis) and asked to answer questions relating to aspects of mental health literacy. Results. Males exhibited poorer mental health literacy skills compared to females. Males were less likely to correctly identify the type of mental illness, more likely to rate symptoms as less serious, to perceive the individual as having greater personal control over such symptoms, and less likely to endorse the need for treatment for anxiety or psychosis. Conclusion. Generally, the sample was relatively proficient at correctly identifying mental illness but overall males displayed poorer mental health literacy skills than females.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of adolescents' exposure to media portraying antisocial and risk behavior on cyberbullying behavior over time. Previous research established relatively high prevalence of cyberbullying behavior among adolescents, although not much is known about the possible predictors of cyberbullying behavior. This study examines the long-term effects of media exposure herein. Furthermore, we examined whether boys and girls differ in this respect. Methods: The long-term effects were tested in a longitudinal design with three waves (N ¼ 1,005; age range, 11e17 years; 49% boys). Measured variables: cyberbullying behavior and exposure to media with antisocial and risk behavior content. Results: Results of mixed-model analyses showed that higher levels of exposure to media with antisocial and risk behavior content significantly contributed to higher initial rates of cyberbullying behavior. Moreover, an increase in exposure to antisocial media content was significantly related to an increase in cyberbullying behavior over time. For both boys and girls, higher exposure to antisocial and risk behavior media content increases cyberbullying behavior over time though more clearly for boys than for girls. Conclusions: This study provided empirical support for the amplifying effect of exposure to antisocial media content on adolescents' cyberbullying behavior over time. Results are discussed in view of adolescents' media use and the larger theoretical framework.

Tytarenko, T. M., Dvornyk, M. S., Larina, T. O., Myronchak, K. V., Savinov, V. V., Hundertaylo, J. D., & Vella, G. S. (2021). Citizens Obtaining Psychosocial Support during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ukraine: A Cross-Sectional Study. Wiadomości Lekarskie, 11(74), 2755-2761. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36740/WLek202111113.
ABSTRACT. The aim: To investigate the obtaining of psychosocial support by citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine using a cross-sectional study assessing the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents.
Materials and methods: It was developed and used the authors’ questionnaire “Socio-psychological support during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine”. Data processing used Nonparametric Mann-Whitney analysis of variance and one-way Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance (SPSS 26.0).
Results: The study was conducted from October 2020 to May 2021 and sampled 100 individuals. Significant differences in the studied features are revealed. Gender: women have a more prosperous and broader range of contacts to discuss fears and anxieties during quarantine; suffer more from emotional loss; have more need to be heard and to be taken care of, with no criticism; are more experienced in professional psychological help obtaining; communicate with internal migrants more often. Age: young respondents (19-24 y.o.) suffer more from pandemic losses in the areas of spirituality and friendship; however, more often and more effectively use the means of online psychological support; older respondents are more likely to receive support from an important community and through meditation. Living conditions: living alone, citizens experience more pandemic stress, suffer from losses in personal life and friendship, and consider participation in challenge activities as the most convenient form of support. Place of residence: living in the rural areas is associated with a narrow circle of citizens’ contacts to discuss their plans for leisure; more significant damage from pandemic losses in health; lack of support in the form of understanding themselves and their conditions. Education: higher education affects a broader circle of communication; more minor financial losses; willingness to share traumatic stories for art therapy. Financial satisfaction promotes the exchange of ideas between users of online psychological support.
Conclusions: The identified conditionality of psychosocial support obtaining by socio-demographic indicators can be used in the development of psychosocial support interventions during a pandemic for Ukrainian citizens by the public and private sectors, particularly in creating specialized smartphone applications, adapting playback theatre in the online space, creating gender-sensitive online programs to integrate IDPs into local communities.
KEY WORDS: Mental health, telehealth, sex differences, art therapy, community participation.

In selecting opposite-sex friends (OSFs), men prioritize physical attractiveness, whereas women prioritize physical prowess and economic resources. This parallel with mate preferences suggests mating mechanisms may partially drive OSF preferences. Selection would have favored activation of mating mechanisms when the probabilistic net benefits of pursuing a mating strategy with OSFs exceeded those associated with alternative strategies, such as platonic friendship. During human evolution, individual differences in sociosexual orientation and relationship status may have been recurrently linked to greater net benefits of pursuing a mating strategy with OSFs. We hypothesized these individual differences would predict individuals’ prioritization in their OSFs of traits desired in mates. Participants (N = 167) allocated ‘‘friend dollars’’ to design their ideal OSFs. Sex, sociosexual orientation, and relationship status
predicted OSF preferences. Replicating previous research, men placed greater value than women on their OSFs’ physical attractiveness. Independent of sex, however, an unrestricted sociosexual orientation predicted prioritizing OSFs’ physical attractiveness. Sociosexual orientation also interacted with sex; among women, an unrestricted orientation predicted greater valuation of OSFs’ physical prowess. Results suggest
mating motivations in opposite-sex friendship depend on interactions between sex, personality, and relationship status.

Negative postcoital emotions (NPEs) are understood as a disorder by some authors, but little is known about their evolutionary significance, etiology, and prevalence. We surveyed samples from the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Norway to test predictions regarding the following evolutionary hypotheses: Three groups of NPEs exist, related to (a) having a lesser or (b) a greater perceived desire for bonding and commitment than one’s partner, or to (c) the maintenance of sexual reputation. Additionally, (d) we hypothesized a Sex by NPE dimension interaction, whereby men have higher levels of NPEs related to a lesser perceived desire for bonding relative to women, and women have higher levels of NPEs related to greater perceived desire for bonding relative to men. Results corroborated the existence of the three dimensions of NPEs, and the associations found between them and indicators of mating effort, attachment anxiety, relationship satisfaction, and mate quality supported most predicted design features across samples. The hypothesized sex differences were supported in all samples. We argue that NPE factors have an important functional basis in sexual strategies, and the factor comprising guilt, shame, and related emotions facilitates the maintenance of sexual reputation. The capacity to experience NPEs appears to have evolutionary functions, and we question its classification as pathological, considering the harmful dysfunction theory of pathology. Finally, we report prevalence data indicating that NPEs are much more common than previously speculated, with frequencies that were highly comparable across samples.

Jealousy evokes strong psychological responses, but little is known about physiological effects. This study investigated whether actively thinking about a jealousy-provoking situation would result in a testosterone (T) response, and what factors might mediate this effect. We examined T responses to  imagining one’s partner engaging in one of three activities: a neutral conversation with a co-worker, a flirtatious conversation with an attractive person, or a passionate kiss with an attractive person. Women in the flirting condition experienced a significantly larger increase in T relative to those in the neutral condition; the kissing condition was intermediate. In men, there were no significant effects of jealousy condition on T. These findings are consistent with the Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds, such that the flirting condition elicited a ‘competitive’ T response, and the kissing condition elicited responses consistent with defeat.

We report a direct replication of our earlier study looking at how people react to research on sex differences depending on whether the research puts men or women in a better light. Three-hundred-and-three participants read a fictional popular-science article about fabricated research finding that women score higher on a desirable trait/lower on an undesirable one (female-favoring difference) or that men do (male-favoring difference). Consistent with our original study, both sexes reacted less positively to the male-favoring differences, with no difference between men and women in the strength of this effect. Also consistent with our original study, belief in male privilege and a left-leaning political orientation predicted less positive reactions to the male-favoring sex differences; neither variable, however, predicted reactions to the female-favoring sex differences (in the original study, male-privilege belief predicted positive reactions). As well as looking at how participants reacted to the research, we looked at their predictions about how the average man and woman would react. Consistent with our earlier results, participants of both sexes predicted that the average man and woman would exhibit considerable own-sex favoritism. In doing so, they exaggerated the magnitude of the average woman's own-sex favoritism and predicted strong own-sex favoritism from the average man when in fact the average man exhibited modest other-sex favoritism. A greater awareness of people's tendency to exaggerate own-sex bias could help to ameliorate conflict between the sexes.

During human evolution, men and women faced distinct adaptive problems, including pregnancy, hunting, childcare, and warfare. Due to these sex-linked adaptive problems, natural selection would have favored psychological mechanisms that oriented men and women toward forming friendships with individuals possessing characteristics valuable for solving these problems. The current study explored sex-differentiated friend preferences and the psychological design features of same-and opposite-sex friendship in two tasks. In Task 1, participants (N = 121) categorized their same-sex friends (SSFs) and opposite-sex friends (OSFs) according to the functions these friends serve in their lives. In Task 2, participants designed their ideal SSFs and OSFs using limited budgets that forced them to make trade-offs between the characteristics they desire in their friends. In Task 1, men, more than women, reported maintaining SSFs for functions related to athleticism and status enhancement and OSFs for mating opportunities. In Task 2, both sexes prioritized agreeableness and dependability in their ideal SSFs, but men prioritized physical attractiveness in their OSFs, whereas women prioritized economic resources and physical prowess. These findings suggest that friend preferences may have evolved to solve ancestrally sex-linked adaptive problems, and that opposite-sex friendship may directly or indirectly serve mating functions.