Epidemiologically speaking - and as I have already answered in other subjects - women present higher levels of "Anxiety Trait" in all cultures than men (they tend to BE more anxious), while in the variable "Anxiety State" ( BEING OR SHOWING anxious at a certain moment, in an anxiety situation) their levels are similar to those of men ... therefore, they suffer more Anxiety Disorders than men. As for the Bibliographic References in this regard, these are very abundant; For this reason, perhaps the most advisable thing is to go to the "DSM-IV", "DAM-IV-TR" and "DSM -5 or V", of the American Association of Psychiatry -APA- and published by Ed. Panamericana y Toray- Masson, Manuals in which multiple epidemiological and etiological data appear, on its evolution, etc. of it all. In the aforementioned "DSM" some answers can be found as to why; but, despite this, some authors allude to biological and psychophysiological differences between both sexes - emphasizing the great incidence of hormonal cycles, of the hormones themselves and of circadian cycles and others in women ... defined as well as "pumps hormonal ", being the paradigm of this the menstrual cycle, and with a weight of everything said in the synaptic mediators, etc. that is to say, differences LINKED TO SEX AS SUCH. Other authors, on the other hand, allude to the differences in the different educational styles that women and men receive in almost all cultures and historical moments, to the different roles they play, to the patterns of behavior expected of each other, etc. translating all this into different styles of coping with stress and, even, different patterns of response to it, in different - not "better or worse" - "forces of the self or the self" or in what is expected in this regard in each sex . ... in short, they appeal more to environmental and sociocultural differences LINKED TO GENDER and that would disappear, to a great extent, with more EQUITABLE AND EQUALITARIAN educational styles ... but, I think the best answer is the one that appeals to the INTERACTION OF BOTH FACTORS: BIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL - "nature and nurture" - HOW TO BE BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL WHICH IS THE HUMAN BEING, WHETHER A MAN OR A WOMAN.

Article McLean CP, Asnaani A, Litz BT, Hofmann SG. Gender difference...

Article Sex Differences in Anxiety Disorders: A Review

Just a few suggestions.

@Medhavi Sood

Thank you so much. That's very helpful

Epidemiologically speaking - and as I have already answered in other subjects - women present higher levels of "Anxiety Trait" in all cultures than men (they tend to BE more anxious), while in the variable "Anxiety State" ( BEING OR SHOWING anxious at a certain moment, in an anxiety situation) their levels are similar to those of men ... therefore, they suffer more Anxiety Disorders than men. As for the Bibliographic References in this regard, these are very abundant; For this reason, perhaps the most advisable thing is to go to the "DSM-IV", "DAM-IV-TR" and "DSM -5 or V", of the American Association of Psychiatry -APA- and published by Ed. Panamericana y Toray- Masson, Manuals in which multiple epidemiological and etiological data appear, on its evolution, etc. of it all. In the aforementioned "DSM" some answers can be found as to why; but, despite this, some authors allude to biological and psychophysiological differences between both sexes - emphasizing the great incidence of hormonal cycles, of the hormones themselves and of circadian cycles and others in women ... defined as well as "pumps hormonal ", being the paradigm of this the menstrual cycle, and with a weight of everything said in the synaptic mediators, etc. that is to say, differences LINKED TO SEX AS SUCH. Other authors, on the other hand, allude to the differences in the different educational styles that women and men receive in almost all cultures and historical moments, to the different roles they play, to the patterns of behavior expected of each other, etc. translating all this into different styles of coping with stress and, even, different patterns of response to it, in different - not "better or worse" - "forces of the self or the self" or in what is expected in this regard in each sex . ... in short, they appeal more to environmental and sociocultural differences LINKED TO GENDER and that would disappear, to a great extent, with more EQUITABLE AND EQUALITARIAN educational styles ... but, I think the best answer is the one that appeals to the INTERACTION OF BOTH FACTORS: BIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL - "nature and nurture" - HOW TO BE BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL WHICH IS THE HUMAN BEING, WHETHER A MAN OR A WOMAN.

Francisco Javier Gala Thank you for your reply. I think you are completely right. I don't want to downplay the biological contribution to differences, but I agree with you that there is a social/sociological contribution, which I would like to isolate. Of course, I am aware that social and biological factors are intertwined. But I am very interested in your proposition that we could alter socioculturally differences by changing education. Do you know any research about that?

Interested..

As Francisco Javier Gala has pointed out, there is a voluminous literature on this topic, especially in regard to anxiety as a clinical symptom. There is no question that there are average biological differences between the sexes (though averages do not necessarily indicate much about a particular individual). However, if we count anxiety as an "emotion", there is a great deal of gender-based socialization about both the experience and the display of emotions. Traditionally, boys are trained to suppress, ignore and hide almost all emotions other than anger. Fear is especially discouraged for boys, as it is considered to be a sign of weakness. As a close relative of fear, anxiety is also discouraged, and any distress tends to be channeled as anger. In contrast, girls are encouraged to be timid and careful, and are allowed to display "weak" emotions like fear, anxiety, and sadness. This socialization is laid on top of biological factors like hormones (particularly androgens in males, which are very responsive to social situations; and estrogen/progesterone in females, which are cyclical and highly responsive to biological conditions such as pregnancy and lactation). For both sexes these hormonal differences are much greater in youth than in later adulthood, when intrasex competition declines, reducing the social pressure on emotional display. Notably, psychology is much more interested in sex differences in young adulthood (i.e. reproductive years) than in older adults.

1) Donner, N. C., & Lowry, C. A. (2013). Sex differences in anxiety and emotional behavior. Pflugers Archiv : European journal of physiology, 465(5), 601–626. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00424-013-1271-7

2) Rich-Edwards, J. W., Kaiser, U. B., Chen, G. L., Manson, J. E., & Goldstein, J. M. (2018). Sex and Gender Differences Research Design for Basic, Clinical, and Population Studies: Essentials for Investigators. Endocrine reviews, 39(4), 424–439. https://doi.org/10.1210/er.2017-00246

3) Mauvais-Jarvis, F., Bairey Merz, N., Barnes, P. J., Brinton, R. D., Carrero, J. J., DeMeo, D. L., De Vries, G. J., Epperson, C. N., Govindan, R., Klein, S. L., Lonardo, A., Maki, P. M., McCullough, L. D., Regitz-Zagrosek, V., Regensteiner, J. G., Rubin, J. B., Sandberg, K., & Suzuki, A. (2020). Sex and gender: modifiers of health, disease, and medicine. Lancet (London, England), 396(10250), 565–582. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31561-0

4) Ohannessian, C. M., Milan, S., & Vannucci, A. (2017). Gender Differences in Anxiety Trajectories from Middle to Late Adolescence. Journal of youth and adolescence, 46(4), 826–839. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0619-7

Diane Sunar Thank you for your reply. So, sex differences should decline over the course of adulthood, shouldn't they? What do you mean exactly by intrasex competition?

Paul Arno Wüllenweber Intrasex competition is the competition among men to be attractive to potential female mates, and the competition among women to be attractive to potential male mates. Presumably success in that competition would be at least partly dependent on one's ability to portray "ideal" characteristics of one's sex, including the differentiation in emotional expression.

Thanks you, dear Paul Arno.

Thanks you, dear Diane Sunar.

Good question

There is no difference between males and females in the level of anxiety

Paul Arno Wüllenweber Some of the older psychoanalytic literature, particularly by Jung and his followers, hypothesize that in later years men take on more "feminine" characteristics and women take on more "masculine" characteristics. But I don't know about an empirical literature. With regard to your question about education as a means of changing socio-cultural gender differences - this is a many-faceted question that probably does not have a clear answer. A good reference on this might be Maccoby's "The Two Sexes: Growing Up Apart, Coming Together". There is a great deal of effort being put into educational interventions, from preschool to university, designed to reduce gender stereotypes and discrimination. Some of it seems to have some effect. But see https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/the-miseducation-of-the-american-boy/603046/ for a journalist's investigation of current attitudes in teenage American boys, suggesting that peer-group norms are more powerful than "official" teachings. That is certainly true at earlier ages also, where attempts to enforce "unisex" toys and play are largely unsuccessful in changing children's preferences. The most favorable educational outcome so far seems to be increased male acceptance of and respect for female abilities and increased concern for fairness considerations. Back when the concept of "androgyny" was fashionable in psychology I did a couple of studies comparing people's ratings of "men", "women" and "yourself" on sex-role stereotypes. Ratings of the two gender groups pretty much followed cultural stereotypes, but the self-ratings of males and females were virtually identical but not very close to the stereotypes.

Dear Haider Kareem Jasim , thank you for your reply. As far as I know, there is relatively consistent evidence for gender differences in anxiety. Women are around 1.7 times more likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder (cf. Christiansen, 2015; McLean et al. 2011) and Women report more anxiety in general (Donner & Lowry, 2013) (i.e. test anxiety (Fiore, 2003)) or anxiety related to COVID-19 (Bigalke, Greenland & Carter, 2020).

Bigalke, J.A., Greenlund, I.M. & Carter, J.R. Sex differences in self-report anxiety and sleep quality during COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Biol Sex Differ 11, 56 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13293-020-00333-4

Christiansen, D.M. (2015). Examining Sex and Gender Differences in Anxiety Disorders, A Fresh Look at Anxiety Disorders, Federico Durbano, IntechOpen, DOI: 10.5772/60662.

Donner, N.C. & Lowry, C.A. (2014). Sex differences in anxiety and emotional behavior.

Fiore, A. M. J. (2003). Gender differences in test anxiety. Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports, 844. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/844

McLean, C. P., Asnaani, A., Litz, B. T., & Hofmann, S. G. (2011). Gender differences in anxiety disorders: Prevalence, course of illness, comorbidity and burden of illness. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 45(8), 1027-1035. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2011.03.006

Asher, M., Asnaani, A., & Aderka, I. M. (2017). Gender differences in social anxiety disorder: A review. Clinical psychology review, 56, 1-12.

I think Haider's comment that there is no difference is wonderful and deceptively simple. He refers to level of anxiety. I believe - from 20+ years in clinical practice in health and mental health services - that he is exactly correct. It is a different answer of course if we look to the literature, however it is important to consider methodological considerations as to how a study group was recruited, whether anxiety is self-identified or objectively validated in some manner, and indeed even the gender of both the designers of the anxiety measure and those administering it, as well as lead authors analysing data.

Diane Sunar's comments regarding 'gender-based socialization' are particularly insightful and useful.

A further thought - it is important to consider the social role a behaviour of anxiety might play in a family or community group.

In research I have conducted with family members in the area of severe mental illness I have been fascinated to observe how displays of heightened emotion (from a female carer) often gain a service response (for an unwell male family member) from a slow-to-act or under-resourced service/system. Over time (if calm early intervention requests are minimised, but the service responds if women present as "anxious") we the system can (without awareness/intent) induct/indoctrinate women to present with heightened distress in order to activate a service response.

Objectively measured these are not 'anxious' women in terms of their own mental health, coping nor generalised anxiety levels. On the contrary, these are often highly adaptive problem solvers and - in recent work I have engaged in with advocacy groups - I note these women are impactful system advocates. Nevertheless, at the point they would be recruited to a study they would 'present' to the service/study with 'anxiety'.

This should be a concern to researchers - that we are typically complicit in a gendered bias in perspective that pathologizes a behavioural adaptation without more deeply grasping/conveying the social functions (there are many) that the behaviours perform.

Paul, with regard to the 'evidence' yes - women are/may well be around 1.7 times more likely to be 'diagnosed' with an anxiety disorder (it is because they present for help/treatment in greater numbers - men avoid doing so and under-report symptom severity when they do get dragged in for assessment). Also women may well 'report' more anxiety in general (wonderfully astute explanations from Diane about socialisation of women in terms of permission/lack of social disincentives to confess emotional distress, whereas the same is not true for men in this moment in time in most cultures).

Melissa Petrakis Good point about the interface with service organizations -- and it may apply more broadly than that.

In my opinion, gender anxiety has an effective relationship with family education, family social culture, culture and society's view of gender.