Gender Differences in Teen Stress: Avoidance and Coping

Gender Differences in Teen Stress: Avoidance and Coping

Read each paragraph, then using bullets outlining the most important points from the reading,: (roughly 6 bullets) / We know that stress is a part of life. We also know this means that teens experience stress too.
The question is how do teens handle stress? Do they know how to handle stress? Do they have the right tools and skills to handle stress in a healthy way?
Research suggests important differences in how boys and girls cope with stress. According to a Baltimore study:
• 25% of boys and 19% avoid or refuse to deal with stress
• 23% of boys and 14% of girls will distract themselves away from their stress
• 17% of boys and 22% of girls seek support
• 35% and 45% of girls actively try to remove or reduce their stress
Based on these results, it appears boys are more likely to refuse to deal with stress and to distract themselves away from it,whereas, girls are more likely to seek support and actively reduce the stress they experience.
Using bullets, pull out the most important information, then in your own words explain each reason for the difference between males and females: / Why the difference?
1. Hormones:During stressful situations, females produce more oxytocin than males. Oxytocin is released into the body to counter the production of cortisol.
This hormone promotes bonding, nurturing, and relaxing emotions. As such, when females are stressed they’re physiologically inclined to bond with others. This leads them to speak about what is going on and get advice and support from others.
Because males produce much less of this hormone they’re less inclined to speak about it and more likely to go off on their own until the stress passes away on its own or they’re able to come up with a solution.
2. Lack of communication and skills:Boys (and men in general) are less likely to talk about what is bothering them. If they don’t want to speak to anyone and they don’t know how to handle what is going on in life, they’re more likely to avoid dealing with it (the same is true of females who don’t speak about their problems and feel in over their head). As a result, they delay developing the skills to deal with stress.
3. Self-esteem:Female self-esteem is built around adequacy of relationships whereas male self-esteem is built based on adequacy of performance.
Because males base their worth on how well they’re able to perform, they’re less likely to seek support than females. Females on the other hand are more likely to search for support and strengthen their relationships (this also explains why many females go out of their way to make others happy).