The Impact Of Sex Role On Behavioral Response To Stress

The individual under stress engages in different behaviors in order to cope with this stress related challenges. In 1914 Cannon summed up these behaviors in a model called "fight-flight" model, which was a simple and effective model, and therefore it was widely accepted for more than eighty years. In 2000 Taylor and colleagues maintained that there was a necessity to make gender differences in these coping behaviors:the "fight-flight" model was more suitable to males, and a so-called "tend-befriend" model to females.The present research has five main goals:(1)To explore the patterns of individual’s behavioral response to stress, whether besides the fight-flight and the tend-befriend models there are some other behavioral models; (2) To expose the relationship of gender and behavioral response to stress; (3) To bring in the culture-society factor, to expose the influence of sex-role on behavioral response to stress; (4) To explore the covert quality of behavioral response to stress; (5) To explore the influence of feeling of stress, gender, and sex-role on covert behavioral response.In order to achieve these goals, the present study has adopted and used the following methods:interview, survey and experiment.Through interviews of specialists in the field, the research obtained the understanding and definition of the concepts related to behavioral response to stress, and through the interviews of common people further information was gathered. Both have greatly contributed to revising of the questionnaire and to the explanation of the results in the later stage.The survey was realized as follows. The ’Scale of Behavioral Response to Stress’ (SBRS) was designed first. After that the scale was administered three times:first time, it was piloted for comprehension; second time, after revising the scale on the basis of the previous test and the opinion of specialists, the goal was to make an initial analysis and an exploratory factor analysis of the items, and to explore the process of the survey work; third time, considering the results of the previous test, the scale was revised into the final version and administered once more. Using exploratory factor analysis to explore the scale’s factor structure, and considering the structure obtained through the exploration, using confirmatory factor analysis to confirm the factor structure and the goodness-of-fit of the data, choosing the best model, analyzing the scale’s reliability and validity, examining the scale’s other psychometric properties, these all ensure that the scale is scientific and valid.Moreover, the research has used also other two, in China sufficiently established and commonly used research tools:sex-role inventory (CSRI-50), and Job Burnout Inventory (MBI-GS), which were administered together with the SBRS at the third time. Finally, the collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, hypotheses testing, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, multivariate analysis of variance, regression analysis, etc., in order to show relatively comprehensively the theoretical structure of behavioral response to stress, the difference between the behavior of two genders under stress, and the influence of the sex-roles on behavioral response to stress.In the experimental part, the research has made use of the new variant of IAT method:the GNAT, explored the implicitness of the behavioral response to stress, played close attention to the feeling of stress, gender, and sex-role differences in the covert behavioral response to stress.Using the method described above, the present research arrived to the following conclusion:(1) Behavioral response to stress has "fight", "flight", "tend", "befriend". Four dimensions; the differences between the four dimensions were statistically significant; there are low correlations, indicating that the scales can’t replace each other, nor are they consistent; the structure of the designed SBRS of the present research is clear, as well as the meaning of items, the reliability and validity indexes achieved or surpassed the related measurement norms, the scale is suitable for further research in this present domain as a valid tool. Moreover, the correlation between all dimensions of behavioral response to stress and job burnout are statistically significant, indicating the good validity of behavioral response to stress, and in the same time, this illustrate that the research on behavioral response to stress has an important practical value.(2) Overall, there is a significant difference between the behavioral response of males and females under stress. The behavioral response of males is "fight", while the one of females are "tend" and "befriend". Comparing the two genders, the behavioral response of fight under stress is significantly more common among males than females. There is no significant difference between the two genders in behavioral response of flight. The behavioral response of tending under stress is significantly more common among females than males, as well as the behavioral response of befriending.(3) the sex-role differences on fight, flight, tend. Behavioral response tendencies were statistically significant, but not on befriend behavioral response tendency. A later comparison discovered that androgynous individuals on fight, tend and befriend behavioral response categories were the highest in average, while the lowest on flight. Undifferentiated individuals were on fight, tend, and befriend response categories significantly lower in average than androgynous participants, but on the flight response they were significantly higher than androgynous. Masculine participants on the fight response were significantly higher than feminine, but on the remaining behavioral response categories they were not significantly different in average from the feminine participants. Masculinity has a significant and stable predictive power with regard to fight and flight, while femininity towards tend and befriend behavioral response categories. With regard to sex-role’s group distribution, among the males the proportion of the four sex-roles from the highest to the lowest is as follows: androgynous, undifferentiated, masculine and feminine. Among females it is: androgynous, undifferentiated, feminine and masculine. Independently on gender, androgynous sex-role occupies the first, undifferentiated the second place. There is no significant gender difference on the four sex-roles. The proportion of individuals with reversed sex-role is about 8.5%. The proportion of the male individuals with feminine sex-role in the group of male participants is significantly higher than the proportion of females with masculine sex-role in the group of female participants. There is no significant difference among individuals with reversed sex-roles on the four behavioral response categories.(4) There is implicit behavioral response of individual there; however, overt behavioral response and implicit behavioral response belong to two rather independent systems; The stress-picture had a significant influence on the feeling of stress of the participants.(5) There is no significant difference of implicit behavioral response on feeling of stress, gender, and sex-role.