Women Identified As More Depressed Than Men

Posted on 2012/11/19 by Jason Hensel

A couple of weeks ago, Christa and I were chatting about how a majority of anti-depression medicine providers market themselves to women. We thought it was interesting that every commercial you see on TV features a depressed woman. It’s one of those things you probably don’t think about until it’s pointed out to you. Then you see it all the time.

And now I’ve seen a new study that fits with this observance. According to research from Viren Swami at the University of Westminster in the U.K., correctly identifying signs of depression depends on the gender of the identifier and the depressed person.

Swami presented study participants with one of two fictitious subjects, Kate and Jack. Both were described in non-clinical terms as having identical symptoms of major depression, the only difference being their suggested gender. For example, a sample of the test reads, “For the past two weeks, Kate/Jack has been feeling really down. S/he wakes up in the morning with a flat, heavy feeling that stick with her/him all day. S/he isn’t enjoying things the way s/he normally would. S/he finds it hard to concentrate on anything.” Respondents were asked to identify whether the individual described suffered a mental health disorder, and how likely they would be to recommend seeking professional help to the subject in the test.

Men and women were equally likely to classify Kate as having a mental health disorder, but men were less likely than women to indicate that Jack suffered from depression. Men were also more likely to recommend that Kate seek professional help than women were, but both men and women were equally likely to make this suggestion for Jack. Respondents, particularly men, rated Kate’s case as significantly more distressing, difficult to treat, and deserving of sympathy than they did Jack’s case.

The researcher also found that individual attitudes towards depression were associated with skepticism about psychiatry and anti-scientific attitudes. According to Swami, their results are significant for initiatives aimed at enhancing mental health literacy, which should consider the impact of gender stereotypes and attitudes towards help-seeking behaviors.

Have you noticed a bias toward women and depression in ads? Do you think women suffer more than men from depression?

(Quotes from the Public Library of Science. Image via Flickr: Luis Sarabia / Creative Commons.)

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Jeans for When You’re Feeling Blue

Posted on 2012/03/14 by Jason Hensel

There are a lot of depressed women in the world. I can tell, because they’re wearing jeans.

According to a study conduced by Professor Karen Pine at the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K., women choose to wear clothes based on their emotional states. When surveyed, more than 50 percent of surveyed women said they wore jeans when depressed. One third of them only wore jeans when they were happy.

Match those jeans with a baggy top–57 percent of women said they wore those when depressed–and you have one really sad female.

If you want to change your mood, though, change your clothes. Yes, it’s really that simple. Science wouldn’t lie to you.

“This finding shows that clothing doesn’t just influence others, it reflects and influences the wearer’s mood too,” Pine said. “Many of the women in this study felt they could alter their mood by changing what they wore. This demonstrates the psychological power of clothing and how the right choices could influence a person’s happiness.”

Your happy clothes should enhance your figure, be well cut and made from bright and beautiful fabrics, says Pine, who obviously doesn’t know about Rocky Mountain jeans from the 1990s.

“Jeans don’t look great on everyone,” Pine said. “They are often poorly cut and badly fitting. Jeans can signal that the wearer hasn’t bothered with their appearance. People who are depressed often lose interest in how they look and don’t wish to stand out, so the correlation between depression and wearing jeans is understandable. Most importantly, this research suggests that we can dress for happiness, but that might mean ditching the jeans.”

While you’re ditching those jeans, you might want to watch your typing, too. New research shows that “words spelled with more letters on the right of the keyboard are associated with more positive emotions than words spelled with more letters on the left.” (Beautiful Mind moment: Jeans, the word, has more letters on a keyboard’s left side.)

Cognitive scientists Kyle Jasmin of University College London and Daniel Casasanto of The New School for Social Research, New York showed that there is a link between a word’s meaning and how it’s typed.

Why should the positions of the keys matter? The authors suggest that because there are more letters on the left of the keyboard midline than on the right, letters on the right might be easier to type, which could lead to positive feelings. In other words, when people type words composed of more right-side letters, they have more positive feelings, and when they type words composed of more left-side letters, they have more negative feelings.

Well, then, that explains the seesaw of emotions I’ve experienced writing this entry.

(Photo via Flickr: Kshitij Dewan / Creative Commons)

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Study Finds Little Advantage to Getting Married

Posted on 2012/01/272012/01/27 by Jason Hensel

I know this is my second post in a row about marriage. This one, though, is ammunition for those who favor cohabitation more than getting married.

According a new study in the Journal of Marriage and Family, married coupled are no better off than unmarried couples who live together. In fact, cohabitation is better for a couple in the long run.

“Marriage has long been an important social institution, but in recent decades western societies have experienced increases in cohabitation, before or instead of marriage, and increases in children born outside of marriage,” said Dr Kelly Musick, associate professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology. “These changes have blurred the boundaries of marriage, leading to questions about what difference marriage makes in comparison to alternatives.”

Musick’s study focused on issues of happiness, depression, health, and social ties. The findings show that feelings of well-being and happiness were high after a honeymoon period for married and cohabitation couples alike. But that good feeling does last long.

“We found that differences between marriage and cohabitation tend to be small and dissipate after a honeymoon period. Also while married couples experienced health gains – likely linked to the formal benefits of marriage such as shared healthcare plans – cohabiting couples experienced greater gains in happiness and self-esteem. For some, cohabitation may come with fewer unwanted obligations than marriage and allow for more flexibility, autonomy, and personal growth” Musick said. “Compared to most industrial countries, America continues to value marriage above other family forms. However, our research shows that marriage is by no means unique in promoting well-being and that other forms of romantic relationships can provide many of the same benefits.”

I’ve always heard that marriage really doesn’t change anything if you’re already living together. Now we have a study proving that saying. However, this raises the question: Why then get married? Are you doing it for tax purposes? Child raising purposes? Or do you feel more committed because you’re married?

(Photo via Flickr: Rodrigo Müller / Creative Commons)

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