Study:  Men, Women, Ride Same Emotional Roller Coaster

Despite the stereotypes, women are not more emotional than men – and researchers say they can prove it.

University of Michigan researchers say that feelings such as enthusiasm, nervousness, or strength are often interpreted differently, between the two genders…  But it’s about what acting “emotional” means to men vs. women, that really makes the difference.

For example, a man whose emotions fluctuate, during a sporting event is described as “passionate.”  But a woman whose emotions change due to any event, even if provoked, is considered “irrational.”

Researchers tracked men and women, and found little-to-no differences, when they compared how emotions fluctuated, for each of the two groups.

Researcher Amy Loviska adds that they looked at women who were on hormonal birth control, and women who were cycling naturally, and found no “meaningful differences between the groups of women, making clear that emotional highs and lows are due to many influences– not only hormones.”

Senior study author Adriene Beltz adds, “Our study uniquely provides psychological data to show that the justifications for excluding women in the first place (because fluctuating ovarian hormones, and consequently emotions, confounded experiments) were misguided.”

Fire up more, here:  (EurekAlert!)

A study finds men and women go through similar emotional fluctuations on a day-to-day basis, and the data was able to show that hormones are not the only factor that influence women’s emotions

  • Researchers say the findings prove that women should not have been excluded from past research participation in part due to the assumption that ovarian hormone fluctuations lead to variation, especially in emotion, that can’t be experimentally controlled

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