Gender Differences of Multimodal Responses to Child and Non-Child Stressors

This investigation explored gender differences and relations among facets of adult stress measured by self-reported cognitive, emotional, and continuous psychophysiological responses to child and non-child stressors. The 46 male and 47 female participants displayed increased heart rate (HR) while watching a video of a happy infant and a decreased HR (associated with increased attentiveness) during a crying infant video. During a cold pressor task, males\u27 HR increased while females revealed a contrary decline in HR. No differences between hyperactive and non-hyperreactive participants were found regarding hypothetical parenting plans or self-reported emotionality. Findings suggest more gender similarity than dissimilarity, possibly due to the evolving nature of parenting (i.e., males and females sharing increasingly analogous parenting roles)