Psychosocial Predictors Of The Gender Difference In Depression
While the psychosocial predictors of depression have been extensively studied in people of all ages, the psychosocial predictors of the gender difference in depression have been studied much less, and almost not at all in older adults. What research there is on the psychosocial predictors of the gender difference in depression has generally focused on adolescents and young adults, and utilized diathesis-stress models. In this research, the diatheses are vulnerabilities that make individuals more susceptible to depression when stressors occur in their lives, and the question is which stressors and which vulnerabilities are more prevalent in the lives of females than in the lives of males . The research on the psychosocial predictors of the gender difference in depression in older adults, however, has generally not utilized any underlying model, but instead has usually looked at single variables that might be related to the gender difference in depression. While sometimes multiple variables are included in a single study, the question being asked is almost always which of these variables accounts for the most variance in the gender difference in older adults.
This section combines studies that were done in many different countries. In some studies, data from several different countries were examined. The results were quite consistent across countries, and so the results are reported without considering the countries in which the data were gathered.
Gender Differences In The Gene Associated With Depression
The twin studies found that the genetic factor affect depressive symptom of adolescents but gender difference in heritability of depressive symptom remains to be further studied. Molecular genetics attempts to locate the genes for gender differences in depression. At present, most candidate gene association studies have examined the relationship between serotonin system genes, dopamine system genes and depression : loci implicated in the serotonin system including serotonin transporter gene-linked promoter region , 5HT receptor 2A , 5HT receptor 2C , monoamine oxidase type A , tryptophan hydroxylase . loci implicated in the dopamine system including catechol-O-methyltransferase , dopamine receptor genes DRD1-DRD5. Related candidate genes can regulate the level of neurotransmitters in the synaptic space through degradation and transport , and can also change the number of receptors in the brain to regulate signal transmission, which in turn affects the level of individual depression.
Table 2. 5-HTTLPR alone and interaction with the environment contribute to the risk of depression.
Figure 1. SLC6A4 L and S allelic.
Statistics Of Women Infidelity
The main reason why women stray is emotional satisfaction.
- 34% of women who cheated on their spouses say to be happy in their marriages.
- 28% of women would stay with a cheating partner.
- 80% of women have constant fantasies about someone other than their partner.
- 76 % of women think they cheat while sending explicit photos.
- 84% of women say that cheating is wrong for married people.
- 36% of women have cheated on their spouses between 2-5 times.
- 32% of women strayed with a former sweetheart.
- 14% of women would cheat on their partner for revenge.
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Gender Differences In Depression
Although artefactual determinants may enhance a female preponderance in depressive disorders to some extent, gender differences in depression are genuine. Determinants of such differences are far from being established and their combination into integrated aetio-pathogenetic models continues to be lacking. At present, adverse experiences in childhood, depression and anxiety disorders in childhood and adolescence, sociocultural roles with related adverse experiences, and psychological attributes related to vulnerability to adverse life events and coping skills are likely to be involved. Genetic and biological factors and poor social support, however, have few or no effects in the emergence of gender differences.
Gender Confusion Is Not Biological Its Psychological
But what does the research say? Has any biological basis been found that indicates who will develop into a transgender? Is there a genetic marker in transgenders? The answer is no. Researchers have looked for evidence to prove that transgenders are different biologically but they havent found any.
- One study published in 2014 looked at certain suspected areas of the brain for an association with male-to-female transsexualism and found none.
- Another study, , looked for evidence that genetic variants of sex hormone-related genes confer individual susceptibility to MtF or FtM transsexualism and didnt find any.
- Yet another study, , found that gender disorder does not seem to be associated with any molecular mutations of some of the main genes involved in sexual differentiation.
Not a smidgeon of abnormality can be found in the genetic makeup of transgenders so, no, transgenders are not born that way. They are normal males and females.
What researchers have found is that transgenders attempt suicide at an alarming rate.
What researchershave found is that a majority of transgenders have at least one psychiatric co-existing disorder, the most prevalent being major depressive disorder, specific phobia and adjustment disorder.
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Vulnerability And Coping Style
The role of adverse life events in producing depression is mostly mediated through interaction with individual vulnerability, as expressed by personality characteristics, attributional style and cognitive coping . Familial aggregation of depressive episodes, temperamental features such as low self-esteem, and life events suggest that genetic factors may influence stable personal characteristics involved both in vulnerability to depression and in exposure to high-risk environments .
Bebbington has reviewed the evidence on the effects produced by expectations and attributional style in depression. Expectations of negative outcomes and of helplessness lead to hopelessness, which may progress into depression. The experience is moderated by causal attributions to events, by evaluation of their consequences and by the related inferences about the self. Individuals at risk of depression have been described as characterised by globality stability and internality . At present, there is insufficient support for the notion that the cognitive characteristics of females are more consistent with a depressive attributional style than those of males.
Im Worried About Someones Mental Health How Can I Help Them
If youre concerned about a friend or relative, there are things you can do to help them.
- Let them know youre there to listen to them without judgement.
- Someone who is experiencing mental health problems may find it hard to reach out, so try to keep in touch. A text message or a phone call could make a big difference.
- Find out about local services such as talking therapy or support groups. See if there are any specifically for men if you think theyd prefer that. Mind has an online directory of peer support groups in England and Wales.
- Help them to get help. Reassure them its okay to ask for help, and that support is out there. You could help them contact their GP or accompany them to their appointment if they want you to.
- Take care of yourself. Looking after someone else can be hard, so make sure you consider your wellbeing too.
CALM has a helpful webpage about what to do if youre worried someone might be suicidal, including warning signs, what to say and what to do next.
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Gender Differences In Adolescent Depressive Symptoms
The experiment had many hypotheses that were evaluated. The following hypotheses guided the analysis :
- Girls will demonstrate higher average levels of depressive symptoms than adolescent boys will during adolescence.
- The higher average level of depressive symptoms among girls, compared with boys, will become evident during early adolescence.
- Boys and girls with advanced pubertal status during early adolescence will manifest higher levels of depressive symptoms.
- Boys and girls with higher levels of depressive symptoms in early adolescence will show higher levels of depressive symptoms in mid- and late adolescence.
- Early depressive symptoms, the pubertal transition, and stressful life events will have interactive as well as additive main effects on risk for depressive symptoms.
- The interactive and additive effects of early depressive symptoms, the pubertal transition, and stressful life events will explain a significant portion of the association between gender and depressive symptoms.
Statistics On Cheaters Cheating Again
Once a cheater, always a cheater is it always true? While some people may cheat only once, others will do it twice and more times.
According to the statistics of serial cheating, 55% of those who cheat will do it again. According to online statistics, 60% of men and women cheated on their partners more than once. The reasons for cheating are very different. 56% of men and 65% of women have cheated on their spouses due to the problems in their relationships. While 44% of men and 30% of women were bored in their marriage. Thus, only 50% of women and 38% of men thought about leaving their partners after cheating.
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Warning Signs Of Suicide
Suicide can be prevented. While some suicides occur without any outward warning, most people who are suicidal do give warnings. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is exclusively dedicated to understanding and preventing suicide through research, education and advocacy, and to reaching out to people with mental disorders and those impacted by suicide. The AFSP offers the following warning signs.
Observable Signs of Serious Depression
- Unrelenting low mood
- Increased alcohol and/or other drug use
- Recent impulsiveness and taking unnecessary risks
- Threatening suicide or expressing a strong wish to die
Making a Plan
- Sudden or impulsive purchase of a firearm
- Obtaining other means of killing oneself such as poisons or medications
- Unexpected rage or anger
The emotional crises that usually precede suicide are often recognizable and treatable. Although most depressed people are not suicidal, most suicidal people are depressed. Serious depression can be manifested in obvious sadness, but often it is expressed as a loss of pleasure or withdrawal from activities that had been enjoyable. In men, it can often manifest in increased irritability, anger, and hostility. Suicide can be prevented through early recognition and treatment of depression and other psychiatric illnesses.
Have We Been Getting It Wrong About Romantic Relationshipsespecially In Womens Lives
Happily ever after is for fairy tales. Real people in romantic partnerships typically feel worse over time. They feel less satisfied with their relationship and more depressed, and their self-esteem slumps.
When one romantic partnership endswhether a marriage, a cohabiting relationship or a dating relationshipsome people want to start another. When they do, those early days can feel good. On the average, newly re-partnered people feel more satisfied and less depressed, and their self-esteem increases, too. But that doesnt last. As that new partnership progresses, people typically start to feel less satisfied, more depressed, and less good about themselves. Years into the new romantic relationship, they feel no better about themselves and no happier about their lives than they did at the beginning of the previous partnership. They do, though, feel more depressed. There are no net gains, only the loss of greater depression.
Maybe the greater life experiences of people heading into their 40s, compared to those just entering their 20s, should mean that they know how to ward off the growing dissatisfaction that characterizes the typical unfolding of a romantic relationship. But instead, the older people grow even more dissatisfied than the younger ones.
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Gaps In The Literature
A critical issue that needs to be addressed in future research on gender, depression, and aging, is stratification by age group in individuals over the age of 60. Most studies included in the present review lumped all of the individuals over the age of 60 together in their analyses. This can be contrasted with research on adolescents and young adults where narrow cross-sectional cohorts are carefully defined. In addition, given the expected life span, at least in developed countries, individuals at age 60 can expect to live for approximately 20 more years. Thus, research that combines together participants over age 60 would be similar to research that combines individuals between the ages of 20 and 40. There are important changes in health, ability, and marital status that take place in the decades following age 60. Ideally, research on gender differences and depression in older adults should stratify findings by age in order to examine the correlates of developmental changes that are particular to different decades. Future studies on gender differences in late life depression should stratify by age, examine interactions between gender and age, and identify predictors that particularly affect individuals in different age categories.
Epidemiology Of Depression And Gender
Beginning in the 1970s and continuing today, gender has been an important variable in understanding depression . In 1977 Weissman and Klerman reviewed the evidence for differing rates of depression between the sexes, in the United States and elsewhere, during the previous forty years. They found that studies showed women experienced depression at rates much higher than men, and critically analyzed the various explanations offered. These explanations included the possibility that the higher rates found in women may not be accurate as well as the possibility that the higher rate found in women may be the result of biologic susceptibility, psychosocial factors such as social discrimination, or female-learned helplessness.
The World Health Organization has been conducting research on the epidemiology of depression since the 1970s. In a 1979 WHO report, Sartorius estimated that 100 million individuals in the world suffer from depression and these people then affect three times as many other people during their illness. Despite WHOs long history of research on depression, gender differences in depression have not become part of WHOs research until recently .
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Do Men Act Out And Women Act In
One of the most interesting and intriguing experiments on gender differences in depression was conducted by J. Douglas Bremner, director of mental health research at the Atlanta Veterans Administration Medical Center and author of the book Does Stress Damage the Brain? . Bremner gathered a group of formerly depressed patients and, with their permission, gave them a beverage that was spiked with an amino acid that blocks the brains ability to absorb serotonin, the neurotransmitter that allows us to feel upbeat and happy.
Of great interest were the gender-specific differences in the way men and women reacted to the potion that blocked the effects of the serotonin. Typical of the males was John, a middle-aged businessman who had fully recovered from a bout of depression, thanks to a combination of psychotherapy and Prozac.
Within minutes of drinking the brew, however, He wanted to escape to a bar across the street, recalls Bremner. He didnt express sadness, he didnt really express anything. He just wanted to go to Larrys Lounge.
Contrast Johns response with that of female subjects like Sue, a mother of two who was in her mid-thirties. After taking the cocktail, She began to cry and express her sadness over the loss of her father two years ago, recalls Bremner. She was overwhelmed by her emotions.
Why Is Depression More Prevalent In Women
Major depression is a chronic illness with a high prevalence and is a major component of disease burden. Depressive disorders were the second leading cause of years lived with disability in 2010 in Canada, the United States and globally., When depression-related deaths due to suicide and stroke are considered, depression has the third highest global burden of disease. Major depression is growing in overall disease burden in Canada and around the world it is predicted to be the leading cause of disease burden by 2030, and it is already the leading cause in women worldwide. Between 1990 and 2010 in Canada, major depressive disorder showed a 75% increase in disability-adjusted life years, the second greatest increase in prevalence after Alzheimer disease in comparison, the increase in the United States was 43%. At the same time, the female:male ratio of global disability from major depression remained unchanged at 1.7:1. Although differences in socioeconomic factors, including abuse, education and income, may impact the higher rate of depression in women, this editorial focuses on biological contributors that are experimentally tractable and may help to understand how and why depression is more prevalent in women and lead to better treatments.
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Suicide Depression And Gender
The following data are derived the National Center for Health Statistics, 2009.
General Information on Suicide
- More than 36,000 people in the United States die by suicide every year.
- In 2009 , there were 36,909 reported suicide deaths.
- Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for adults between the ages of 18 and 65 years in the United States.
- Currently, suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States.
- A person dies by suicide about every 15 minutes in the United States.
- Every day, approximately 101 Americans take their own life.
- Ninety percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death.
- There are an estimated 8 to 25 attempted suicides for every suicide death.
Depression and Suicide
Gender and Suicide
- There are four male suicides for every female suicide, but 3 times as many females as males attempt suicide.
- Between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, the suicide rate among U.S. males aged 1524 more than tripled. Among females aged 1524, the rate more than doubled during this period. The youth suicide rate generally leveled off during the 1980s and early 1990s, and since the mid-1990s it has been steadily decreasing.
- Between 1980 and 1996, the suicide rate for African American males aged 1519 has doubled.
- The suicide rates for men rise with age, most significantly after age 65.
- About 60% of older adults who take their own lives see their primary care physician within a few months of their death.
There Are Other Signs That Might Give Us A Better Picture Of The State Of Mens Mental Health:
- Three times as many men as women die by suicide.
- Men aged 40-49 have the highest suicide rates in the UK.
- Men report lower levels of life satisfaction than women according to the Governments national wellbeing survey.
- Men are less likely to access psychological therapies than women: only 36% of referrals to NHS talking therapies are for men.
In addition, men are far more likely than women to go missing, sleep rough, become dependent on alcohol and use drugs frequently. Find out more about how mental health problems affect men and women differently on our statistics page.
While all this can paint a gloomy picture, there is help and support available if youre worried about your own or someone elses mental health see below.
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