Children's vulnerability to stressful life events in mothers' eyes: Effects of gender and parental experiences

Michael A. Hoffman, Rachel Levy-Shiff

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Although the professional literature indicates greater vulnerability to stress among boys than girls, research on stereotypes and gender typing in socialization offers indirect evidence of a contrary belief among parents. In order to assess sex differences in vulnerability directly, 80 Israeli middle-class mothers of elementary school children were asked to predict the difficulty that low- and high-stress life events would pose for child protagonists in eight vignettes. Sex of child was manipulated by gender label denotation. Results indicated that mothers of boys predicted greater child difficulties with stress than mothers of girls. They also predicted that boys would have more difficulty than girls, a sex difference that did not appear among mothers of girls. The results suggest that maternal perceptions of sex differences in vulnerability are influenced by observation of their own children under stress. Further, professional opinion and lay wisdom as to actual male vulnerability are not necessarily at loggerheads.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)39-45
Number of pages7
JournalSex Roles
Volume27
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1992

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