Читать книгу Handbook of Clinical Gender Medicine - Группа авторов - Страница 97

Gender refers to the implicit and explicit dissimilarities in an array of socioculturally constructed roles, identities, and personality traits that generally predominate in one sex or the other [10]. In general, women self-report more environmental stressors and psychosocial distress, while men are generally more biologically stress responsive compared to women in the follicular phase of their menstrual cycle or on oral contraceptives. These sex differences stem from lifelong exposure to sex steroids in addition to differential patterns of socioculturally constructed gender factors linked to diverse patterns of threat processing and coping mechanisms. Indeed, women demonstrate increased cortisol levels when facing social rejection challenges [15], whereas men tend to be much more reactive when confronted with achievement-based stressors [3] in laboratory paradigms. Therefore, differences in circulating gonadal hormone levels modulate physiological reactivity to stress, but so do elusive gender factors rooted in ethological pressures.