Previous research on gender differences in responses to stress has primarily focused on 1 domain of response (either subjective, behavioral, or physiological) and the association between emotional response and the urge to drink has rarely been explored. Furthermore, previous studies of physiological stress responses (discussed above) commonly utilize stressors that are more relevant for men than women, specifically achievement-related stressors (see Stroud et al., 2002; for discussion). Therefore as pointed out by Taylor et al. (2000), less is known about stress responses in women than men. Studies are needed that examine stress response to stressors that are equivalent in distress experience for men and women. When exploring the potential bidirectional effects of alcohol misuse longitudinally from adolescence to early adulthood, differences again emerged between men and women.
Tears in your beer: Gender differences in coping drinking motives, depressive symptoms and drinking
Understanding these factors is crucial in addressing the gender divide in stress-related alcohol consumption. As the cocktail glass teeters between his and her hands, society’s unspoken rules dictate who will reach for it first when stress comes knocking. This seemingly innocuous moment encapsulates a complex interplay of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors that contribute to the gender divide in stress drinking. It is recommended that women with even low-level problematic drinking should be assessed for psychological symptoms including sub-threshold level, while men who have moderate to high-level problematic drinking should be assessed, particularly for the degree of stress level. Furthermore, further investigation focused on the mechanisms of alcohol effect on psychological distress and future studies with consideration for known and emerging gender-specific factors are needed to develop more appropriate evaluation and management strategies for both men and women. The cross-sectional study included 31,657 participants (17,915 women and 13,742 men) from the 2010–2013 and 2015 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Stress-Induced Speech Changes: How Anxiety Affects Your Communication
Information about experiences that may place upward pressure on drinking for men and women can inform efforts to prevent and treat alcohol-use disorders. To explore reasons for gender differences in problem-drinking prevalence and to compare the experiences of problem-drinking women and men, this article examines gender differences in exposure and drinking reactivity to social influences and stressors during adulthood. On the basis of research cited in earlier sections, we hypothesized that women will report greater subjective sad and anxious experience and greater behavioral/bodily arousal in response to stress than men.
Differences in Drinking Guidelines for Men and Women
It is also noteworthy that both drinking motives were supported as mediators of stress effects for young men, but only social motives were supported for young women. This finding was unexpected as other studies have shown stronger associations among stress, coping motives, and alcohol use for women than for men (Peltier et al., 2019). Remarkably, the association between problematic drinking and psychological distress is more drastic in women than men. In addition, women showed a significant association even though the severity of drinking problem was low with the exception of stress perception.
Research on the strength of influence in the drinking of married couples has produced similarly inconsistent results (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2004). Depending on how stressors are measured, men and women appear to have somewhat different exposure to some types of stressors. In one community sample, for instance, men reported more job-related stressors, but women reported more health-related and social stressors and a slightly higher overall level of stressors (Dawson et al., 2005, see also Kendler et al., 2001). In contrast, another community sample showed no gender differences in past-year rates of divorce and marital problems, financial problems, severe illness or injury, or death of family member or friend (Maciejewski et al., 2001). It is important to note that gender differences in exposure to stressors may in part reflect differences in participants’ employment histories and in the size and composition of their social networks and may thus be expected to vary over time and across cultures.
Gender Equivalency of the Stress Scripts and Imagery Vividness
- What they found — As you might expect, all the participants who were exposed to the stressful situation consumed more booze than the control group.
- In summarizing the existing research, we therefore first focus on gender differences in general population samples or samples that include both problem and nonproblem drinkers.
- However, it’s important to note that these statistics may not tell the whole story, as women are often underrepresented in alcohol-related research.
- Although women generally consume less alcohol than men, they may be at a greater risk for alcohol-related psychological distress.
- They may experience a wider range of emotions in response to stress, including sadness, anxiety, and fear.
- For instance, women typically exhibit a more pronounced activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which is responsible for the stress response.
The few existing studies show that women express greater sadness and anxiety behaviorally and in their bodies than men while interacting with a spouse (Barnes and Buss, 1985) or viewing a sad film (Rottenberg et al., 2002). In the short term, women tend to experience more severe hangovers and are at higher risk of alcohol poisoning due to their body’s different response to alcohol. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to engage in risky behaviors while under the influence, such as drunk driving or getting into physical altercations. The CDC guidelines for alcohol consumption note that 2 drinks or less in a day for men and 1 drink or less in a day for women is considered drinking in moderation. “A lot of the research in this area is limited to two-drink taste test studies which really does not model impaired control over alcohol well. Very few existing studies manipulating stress as a causal mechanism have studied this large of a group of women in a social drinking context prior to our study,” Patock-Peckham says.
This week, her team published a study in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors specifically looking at differences in who men and women use alcohol when they are under stress. Her findings suggest a key difference in how men and women consume alcohol — at least under certain conditions. The physical health consequences of stress for men and women can be significant and varied. Women are more likely to report stress-related physical symptoms such as headaches, gastrointestinal issues, and fatigue. They also have a higher risk of developing autoimmune diseases and chronic pain conditions in response to prolonged stress. Men, while less likely to report physical symptoms, may be at higher risk for stress-related cardiovascular problems and certain types of cancer.
Despite these limitations, the primary strength of the present study is that all the data were obtained from a nationwide population study with a high response rate and sufficient sample size, and they provide representative information regarding the general Korean population. To evaluate the gender differences in the associations between the drinking or AUDIT levels and psychological distress, all the above variables except sex were adjusted, and menstrual condition (presence or absence of menstruation) was additionally adjusted for women. The p-values were two-tailed and those less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to assess the associations between the drinking or AUDIT levels and psychological distress. The odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were also estimated after adjusting for potential confounders. Correlations were performed to ascertain the relationship among subjective emotion, behavioral and bodily responses, HR, BP, and craving in the stress and alcohol-cue conditions, separately for males and females.
This might contribute to women’s tendency to ruminate more on stressful events and potentially experience more stress-related anxiety and depression. On a day prior to the laboratory sessions, participants were brought into the testing room in order to acclimate them to study procedures (e.g., rating forms) and to train them in imagery and relaxation, as described in Sinha (2001b) and Sinha et al. (2003). If they had difficulty imagining these situations clearly (i.e., they rated the scene’s clarity below 7 on a scale from 1 to 10), further training was given.
Alcohol-Cue Condition
The Reframe app equips you with the knowledge and skills you need to not only survive drinking less, but to thrive while you navigate the journey. Our daily research-backed readings teach you the neuroscience of alcohol, and our in-app Toolkit provides the resources and activities you need to navigate each challenge. Sex, age, years of education, marital status, employment status, household income, smoking status, physical activity status, sleep duration, and presence of medical or psychiatric conditions were used. Participants responded to a single item in grade 12 from the Primary Prevention Awareness Attitudes & Usage Scale (Swisher, Shute, & Bibeau, 1984). Participants indicated how often they had ever been drunk, using a six-point scale with response options ranging from 1 (never happened) to 6 (happens almost every day or more). “Theoretically, we expected both men and women to need the stress and the prime dose to achieve the highest blood alcohol concentrations.
This heightened activation can lead to a more intense and prolonged stress response in women. Conversely, testosterone in men can have a stress-buffering effect, potentially explaining why men might appear less reactive to stress in certain situations. Problem drinking has risen fastest among women in their 30s and 40s, the age at which many are squeezed between careers, motherhood, and aging parents. This may seem odd because high-income women should be better stress drinking has a gender divide able to afford help with child care, chores, and other responsibilities that can cause stress.
Alcohol consumption
Women and men are at risk for different types of stress-related disorders, with women at greater risk for depression and anxiety and men at greater risk for alcohol-use disorders. The present study examines gender differences in emotional and alcohol craving responses to stress that may relate to this gender divergence in disorders. During certain phases of the menstrual cycle, women may be more susceptible to the effects of alcohol and may experience heightened stress responses.
Unpacking the Gender Biases of Alcohol
However, socializing at parties is also a context for drinking in early adulthood, which may lead some young women to engage in heavy alcohol use, including binge drinking. Further research, especially qualitative studies that probe the meanings behind drinking to socialize and studies that illuminate the processes that encourage binge drinking at social gatherings, would help to elucidate the reasons for these gender-specific pathways. One aim of this research was to explore possible reasons for the higher prevalence of alcohol-use problems among men, an issue addressed in the analyses of the overall sample. In terms of overall differences in exposure, we found that men had higher exposure to peers’ drinking and women had higher exposure to partner’s drinking. This pattern is consistent with expectations based on the heavier alcohol consumption of men as manifested in men’s friendships and work relationships and in their partner relationships. No significant gender difference was found in drinking reactivity to partner’s drinking among those who were exposed to this situation.
Thus, there is emerging evidence that stress predicts young adult alcohol misuse through coping motives, but to our knowledge, the mediating role of social motives has not been investigated. Additionally, for women, two effects (one direct and one indirect) were now significant that were not significant in the cross-sectional model. Greater endorsement of coping motives was directly related to more negative consequences, and more relationship stress was indirectly related to more negative consequences from alcohol use through greater endorsement of coping motives.
Evidence regarding gender differences in reactivity to social influences among problem drinkers is sparse. In one study, social motives for drinking were stronger among men than among women (Olenick and Chalmers, 1991); this factor might contribute to men being more reactive to peer influences to increase drinking. It can be triggered by various factors, from work pressures to personal relationships, and even societal expectations.
Furthermore, it might be the case that female students higher in coping motives and who are experiencing problems might be more likely to drink to cope with situations or circumstances other than depression. Additionally, because females are more relationally-orientated relative to males (e.g., Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001), females higher in depressive symptoms but lower in CDM may alleviate stress in alternate ways, such as talking to friends. That is, problem-drinking men had greater exposure to workplace problems, whereas problem-drinking women had more exposure to partner’s drinking, family problems, death of someone close, and emotional distress.
Compared to men, women get drunker faster, maintain blood alcohol levels for longer and develop alcohol-related liver disease at lower levels of drinking. Despite alcohol’s potential to cause detrimental long-term harm to anyone, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) reports that women may be at greater risk. Longitudinal model predicting young adult negative consequences of drinking and binge drinking. Cross-sectional model predicting young adult negative consequences of drinking and binge drinking.
Items were rated based on how many times each problem occurred while drinking, such as “went to work or school high or drunk.” Total possible scores range from 25 to 125 (White & Labouvie, 1989). “Anytime I felt anything I didn’t want to feel, I used outside things to manage that, and alcohol was very effective,” she said. The next day, she would feel shaky and even more stressed—and still be facing the demons she drank to avoid. Women’s strengths often lie in their emotional intelligence, ability to multitask, and willingness to seek help. Men may benefit from their tendency to compartmentalize problems and their generally higher levels of self-confidence in stressful situations. Studies have shown that women tend to have a larger prefrontal cortex and hippocampus relative to brain size, areas involved in emotion regulation and memory formation.
