Differences between women's and men's emotionality and styles of coping with stress

Monika Kornaszewska-Polak

Wyższa Szkoła Humanitas w Sosnowcu

Abstract

Presented article includes three psychological phenomena: emotions, stress and interpersonal differences. The article reveals relationships among these phenomena in the context of sex differences. It was hypothetically assumed that there are statistically important differences between women and men concerning the choice of stress coping strategy and that these differences could be caused by different emotions. The results of statistical analysis confirmed the hypothesis and showed that women cope with stress by seeking social support, taking responsibility and escape-avoidance more often than men. Men cope with stress by self-control and distancing more often than women. Different structure of dominant emotions can be the main cause of differences between women and men in their choice of coping strategy. Women experienced high level of anxiety, neuroticism, high emotional reactivity and high level of situational control. Men experienced high level of psychoticism, emotional resistance and high level of emotional expression control. Two types of emotionality were based on separated differences: famine defined as emotional commitment and masculine defined as emotional distance.