Week 6, Post 2

Another student generated some really thought provoking questions discussing sex differences in emotional regulation. An person asked "Do you believe that maybe it [the fact that girls respond more quickly than boys] changes as we age?"

I think women will always have more emotions than men, because women are programmed to naturally have more hormones. These hormones make them more receptive to reading other’s emotions and more susceptible to experiencing a range of emotions. With this emotional intelligence, women are naturally more receptive to people's emotion, mainly to sense other person’s intent, and for selecting a faithful mate. It’s a woman’s only defense against a poor reproductive decision, from an evolution standpoint. Women will probably always possess more range of emotion than men.  I also, don't think it's a matter of women responding quicker, it's just they empathize easily, rather than jumping into problem solving mode as men tend to automatically do. Boy's emotional regulation is different from girl's emotional regulation in that they trump emotions, and go straight into problem solving. Where as girls, tend to empathize due to their nurturing nature.

In answering the question, “Will boys become quicker developing emotional regulation even though girls start developing it first?”  

Boys might be quicker to respond to anger due to influences of testosterone, which is this case emotion over rules logic. As stated in the text, boys learn to externalize their emotions, whereas girls internalize. Boy's usually learn to control their rage, through the process of emotional regulation, guided by parents calming their child effectively. 

 I personally don’t think men will grow to exhibit more emotion than women because they are programmed differently.But nature and nurture play a role in how emotional a person is as well. So the range or extent of emotions vary for every individual.

And the other question addressing men being just as susceptible to depression as women, I think that is dependent on genetics, environment, personal emotional regulation. According to the text, depression occurs in girls more often, due to neurological and hormonal influences as well as internalizing (Berger, p. 268, 269). Studies probably show that woman have more depression because of post pregnancy, hormonal influences that cause postpartum depression. Nature and biological predisposition are factors in answering these questions.