Everyday stressors and gender differences in daily distress

“Differences between males’ and females’ experience of stress due to hassles may be caused by several factors, including differences in coping strategies (Stone & Neale, 1984), emotional reactions to stressors ( Almeida & Kessler, 1998 ), perceived control over stressors (Nolen-Hoeksema, Larson, & Grayson, 1999) and ru…”

“Past studies (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Stawski, et al., 2008) have also demonstrated that daily stressors have powerful influence on well-being, by having separate and immediate effects that are confined to a single day, and by piling up over several days to create lasting frustrations and…”

“Women notice themselves in stressful situations more frequently than men (e.g., Almeida & Kessler, 1998; McDonough & Walters, 2001).”

“The results supported and confirmed previous research findings (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Astbury, 2006; Gove & Tudor, 1973; McDonough & Walters, 2001; McDonough & Strohschein, 2003; Mirowsky & Ross, 1995; Mirowsky & Ross, 1989).”

“Exposure to these kinds of everyday, commonplace events, or “quotidian” stressors [38], are strong predictors of psychological well being [36, 39–48].”

“1988, Almeida and Kessler 1998, Tamres et al. 2002, Matud 2004). Gender socialization prescribes different and often stereotypical expectations and attributes for gender roles (Rosario et al. 1988, Tamres et al. 2002, Matud 2004). Specifically, the female gender role is stereotypically associated with the attributes o…”

“Furthermore, wives report more high-stress days and fewer distress-free days than husbands ( Almeida & Kessler, 1998 ).”

“In fact, previous research suggests that gender is a social determinant of health and well-being, especially women on average report to have worse mental health outcomes than men in daily life [38].”

“, restless, nervous, worthless) since the previous telephone interview; (Almeida and Kessler, 1998; Mroczek and Kolarz, 1998; Watson et al., 1988) Interviews were conducted once a day over the eight-day diary period, such that participants were asked about their negative affect in the previous 24 hours.”

“We expected the same to be true for females as compared to males, given previous studies that have suggested that females are more likely to internalize and be psychologically affected by interpersonal relationships as compared to males (Almeida & Kessler, 1998).”

“Specifically, men and women tend to differ in how they experience psychosocial stressors (Almeida and Kessler 1998; Thoits 2010), and how their stress experiences are expressed.”

“This may contribute to the heightened prevalence of negative physical and mental health problems noted in women.(11) Findings such as these suggest that women and men may perceive the stress of college in different ways, and these sex differences may have the potential to negatively affect the strategies one utilizes…”

“Each day, participants reported how much of the time they had experienced 13 positive emotions (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), such as “in good spirits” and “cheerful,” on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 (none of the time) to 4 (All of the time).”

“Research suggests that women may be more likely than men to experience psychological distress in response to familial sources of stress, as women’s selfperceptions have been found to be more centrally related to relationship considerations [58, 59].”

“EMA has been used to explore various processes, such as personality (Rhodewalt, Madrian, & Cheney, 1998), marital interactions (Almeida & Kessler, 1998), physical symptoms (Suls, Wan, & Blanchard, 1994), physical and mental health concerns (Alloy, Just, & Panzarella, 1997), and disorders wherein…”

“It is well established that women have higher rates of depression than men, especially during the childbearing years (O’Hara & Swain, 1996; Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Evans et al. 2001; Kessler, 2006).”

“Women tend to be more reactive to interpersonal tensions than men (Almeida and Kessler 1998).”

“The traditional approach is to request users to proactively provide labels by manually keeping a dairy [3], retrospectively via an interview [4], or ecological momentary self-reports [20, 22].”

“…gender attributes, like dependence or autonomy, and these attributes hinder girls from using problem-focused coping strategies (e.g., solving problem) and boys from using emotion-focused coping strategies (e.g., expressing weakness; Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Barnett et al., 1987; Matud, 2004).”

“This finding is consistent with other literature on distress and has been documented previously in brain tumor patients [10, 30 , 31].”

“While it is generally known that women are more likely to develop depressive feelings than men (Almeida and Kessler 1998; NolenHoeksema 2001; Klose and Jacobi 2004), we do not know of any studies that focus on gender differences in the ways family ties affect people’s depressive moods.”

“Women are more likely to have mood and anxiety disorders, while men more often suffer from addictive disorders and antisocial personality problems (Almeida and Kessler 1998; Kessler and Zhao 1999).”

“This study controls for factors that may lead to variations in interpersonal tensions, wellbeing, and cortisol, including gender (Almeida & Kessler, 1998), age (Almeida, Piazza, & Stawski, 2009; Birditt et al., 2005; Blanchard-Fields et al., 2004), self-rated physical health, education, race,…”

“Events that are appraised as stressors typically have potent negative effects on physical, psychological, (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Almeida, Wethington, & Kessler, 2002; Bolger, DeLongis, Kessler & Schilling, 1989; Mroczek & Almeida, 2004) and cognitive (Sapolsky, 1992) health.”

“…and age were also examined as moderators as personality and measures of emotional reactivity may vary as a function of these demographic variables (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Stewart et al., 1997), and startle response has been shown to decrease with age (Ford et al., 1995; K. Ludewig, Geyer, &…”

“This pattern aligns with prior work showing that women are more likely than men to ruminate and thus experience prolonged distress (e.g., Almeida and Kessler 1998; Mohr et al. 2003), although it nuances this finding by suggesting this rumination is primarily true for women married to men.”

“While there have been attempts to use very different investigative tools to gather reliable data on household decision-making (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003; Larson & Almeida, 1999), a controlled experiment environment can circumvent some of the potential biases that arise…”

“…is an ecologically valid stressor with the potential to elicit strong negative emotions (Gottman, 1993), and wives often exhibit higher negative emotionality during a marital conflict and report greater levels of distress following the interaction than their husbands (Almeida & Kessler, 1998).”

“This seems to be in agreement with those of other studies, which suggest that women score lower on measures of resilience and handle stress less adeptly [13,29-31].”

“Regarding mental health, or more specifically distress, anxiety and depression, some demographics (e.g., gender (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Barros et al., 2017; McLean & Anderson, 2009; Nolen-Hoeksema, 2001), age (Christensen et al., 1999), education, number of people in confinement with the person…”

“Covariates included participants’ age, sex (1 = male, 2 = female), years of education (6–20 years), neuroticism, and social network size, because these variables have shown to be related to the outcome variables (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Grzywacz et al., 2004).”

“Almeida and Kessler (1998) probed these sex differences, finding that women had more onsets of distress than did men.”

“Research has demonstrated that emotional distress which stems from a marital argument is more pronounced for wives than husbands (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Bolger, DeLongis, Kessler, & Schilling, 1989a).”

“Also whereas other studies tend to find women with children exhibit higher levels of distress (Almeida & Kessler 1998; Mirowsky & Ross 1995), we find the opposite.”

“EMA may be used to assess processes as diverse as marital interactions (Almeida & Kessler, 1998), physical symptoms (Suls, Wan, & Blanchard, 1994), and physical and mental health concerns (Alloy, Just, & Panzarella, 1997).”

“In fact, depression can be related to factors such as loneliness [52,55], socioeconomic status [24,64–66] or maladaptive coping mechanisms [59], mainly among women [67,68].”

“With regard to the sex factor, Almeida and Kessler (1998) mention that women more commonly internalize problems and present ruminative responses that can prolong distress and increase the effects of stressors, making it difficult to find a solution while men in general externalize stress more…”

“…including age (Almeida & Horn, 2004; Chiriboga, 1997; Röcke et al., 2009; Sliwinski et al., 2009; Stawski et al., 2008; Zautra et al., 1991), sex (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Bolger et al., 1989; Folkman et al., 1987), education (Almeida et al., 2005; Grzywacz et al., 2004), neuroticism (Bolger &…”

“Women tend to report more emotional distress than men [47], and women and adults with higher education are more likely to engage in social activism than men and adults with less education [48].”

“Regarding coping strategies, it was found that adults with BPD exhibited a lower set of coping strategies than the general population, and higher coping inflexibility [28]; more specifically, females with BPD showed the tendency to present emotion-oriented coping strategies, while males showed more avoidance-oriented…”

“Differences within stressor types and their description can be found in [2].”

“We observed that women were more likely to not leave home compared to men, which was already associated with fear, boredom, frustration, and anger [41]; besides, women seem to be more likely to ruminate on negative thoughts than men, which can prevent the development of healthy, adaptive coping strategies [42].”

“Almeida and Kessler (1998) found that women report a higher prevalence of high-distress days and a lower prevalence of distress-free days than men.”

“Almeida and Kessler (1998) found women reported higher frequency of daily stress and a higher frequency of highly stressful days compared to men.”

“Research has also shown that marital distress is an associated factor for mental disorders in both men and women; however, women are more likely to experience it [47].”

“It is assumed that women are more often exposed to stressful situations thanmen (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; McDonough &Walters, 2001); and women seem to appraise stressors more stressful than men do (Kessler, McLeod, & Wethington, 1985; Ptacek, Smith, & Zanas, 1992).”

“Findings from previous studies have been mixed (Davis et al., 1999) , however, it has generally been concluded that men have higher stress reactivity for those domains than women (Almeida and Kessler, 1998; Helgeson, 2011; Jerlock et al., 2008; Matud, 2004; McDonough and Walters, 2001).”

“Also, according to gender role perspectives, women compared with men engage more in distress-provoking roles including providing more support to others, being more empathetic, and caring more for others (Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Gove & Tudor, 1973).”

“Previous research has suggested that participant research diaries may be used to capture stressors and coping strategies as they occur, and to highlight fluctuations across time (e.g., Almeida & Kessler, 1998; Day & Thatcher, 2009).”

“From the general population, it is known that women tend to report more psychological distress than men [36].”

“More recently, however, Almeida and Kessler (1998) showed that females’ greater exposure to daily stressors largely accounted for their more frequent experience of daily distress.”

“Covariates in the present analyses were selected based on previous research that demonstrates their associations with daily stress and well-being: age [13, 44], sex [45], race [46], education [1], marital status [47], physical health [5], and personality/trait neuroticism [8].”