Comments | differenceblog: The ew factor

differenceblog

The ew factor

Oct 04, 2006 08:41

Schienle et al. (2005) used fMRI to examine fear and disgust elicited with images in male and female subjects. Self-report measures indicated that they had induced the appropriate emotions, with women had responding more strongly, although brain activation showed stronger reaction in men for fear stimuli. No gender differences in activation were ( Read more... )

phobias, emotion, disgust, gender differences, fear, fmri

Comments 7

poeticalpanther October 4 2006, 13:58:10 UTC

There are some caveats I'd apply to that "men feel disgust less" thing. For a start, a mother almost always loses her disgust about MANY things during the time of child-raising. I speak from experience here. When you've wiped your kid's ass, and swabbed their puke out of your cleavage, and so on and so on, it...insulates you some. And - though there are exceptions, generally having to do with spending more than the average amount of time men spend with their children - it's not my experience that men grow that insulation about those things.

differenceblog October 4 2006, 14:04:59 UTC

hm. You know, I think that you're right about the difference in stimuli. Men I know are a lot more disgusted by bodily issues (vomit, poop, etc) than the women I know -- but the women are more disgusted by bugs and rot.

Thoughts?

poeticalpanther October 4 2006, 14:10:06 UTC

Exactly. The smell of dead things repulses me, but I can pitch right in with bodily fluids. I'll jump and run squealing from an earwig, but I adore spiders. I think there's a lot of individual variation, too, beyond the gender-based tendencies.

differenceblog October 4 2006, 14:20:58 UTC

On a related issue, my cat was making disturbing noises on Monday, and I picked him up to check on him, and he began to vomit voluminously all over me. This bothered dabunny far more than me.

chown_me October 4 2006, 14:36:03 UTC

I'm interested in details about the fainting episode (but don't feel obligated). That's something I always worry about, though in actuality, I've only had a couple times when I felt like it was possibly going to happen.

differenceblog October 4 2006, 14:55:53 UTC

I've had a couple of times when I felt like it would, but those aren't the times that it happened. The only time I actually fainted, I was completely unaware that I had.

*pause to look up LJ post for that day*

Wow! Actually, that's not how it happened at all. My memory of the event is very different from how it actually happened. Here's the post I wrote immediately after the incident.

chown_me October 4 2006, 15:15:47 UTC

Thanks!