Men are innocent until proven guilty: a comment on the examination of sex differences by Pierce and Kirkpatrick (1992).
Pierce and Kirkpatrick (1992, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 30, 415-418) addressed the finding that men reported lower levels of fear than women in response to specific fear items and concluded on the basis of their experiment that this was because the men were lying. Their conclusion is questioned on various grounds, including inappropriate statistical analyses, inadequate treatment of physiological data, failure to address the possibility of sample selection bias (signalled by the high drop-out rate) and the inadequacy of self-assessed fear measures based on a small number of single items. An alternative interpretation of their data is offered, based on the inverse correlation between initial response level and size of increment, demonstrable in their study in males but not in females. It is argued here that the increments may have been due to anticipatory arousal, a mediating factor that would also account for the facilitation of generalization between certain specific items. It is further suggested that, if this explanation is correct, the men were acting with more rather than less honesty, and it may on the other hand be the reports of the females that were affected by their sex-role stereotype. Another possible explanation of the findings is discussed. If men relatively high in masculinity had a greater tendency to drop out, the experimental sample at the second testing would be biased towards men relatively low in masculinity and reporting higher fear levels.
Pickersgill
M J
MJ
Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey, U.K.
Arrindell
W A
WA
D001143:Arousal; D001341:Autonomic Nervous System / Q000502:physiology; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006167:Guilt; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012647:Self-Assessment