Health and Community Systems

We used meta-analysis to examine recent studies ofsex differences in coping. Women were more likely than men to engage in most coping strategies. The strongest effects showed that women were more likely to use strategies that involved verbal expressions to others or the self-to seek emotional support, ruminate about problems, and use positive self-talk. These sex differences were consistent across studies, supporting a dispositional level hypothesis. Other sex differences were dependent on the nature of the stressoi supporting role constraint theory. We also examined whether stressor ap-praisal (i.e., women's tendencies to appraise stressors as more severe) accountedfor sex differences in coping. Wefound some supportfor this idea. To circumvent this is-sue, we provide some data on relative coping. These data demonstrate that sex differ-ences in relative coping are more in line with our intuitions about the differences in the ways men and women cope with distress. Men and women are commonly thought to have different styles of coping. Stereotypes of male coping behavior typically revolve around two seemingly op-posite sets of behaviors. Men are believed to be more likely to confront a problem head-on and also are as-sumed to be more likely to deny a problem exists. Women, on the other hand, are believed to exhibit a more emotional response to problems and are ex-pected to spend more time discussing problems with friends or family. A number of older studies indicate that men are more likely than women to exhibit di-rect, problem-confronting coping behaviors or alter-nately to avoid or deny the stressor (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978; Stone & Neale, 1984; Veroff, Kulka, & Douvan, 1981). Studies also show that women are more likely than men to cope with emotion-oriented behaviors and to seek social support (Billings &amp