I wonder if it's also a product of the fact that we're wired differently. Studies have shown that men tend to think more linearly and women tend to think about things as related to other things. For instance, in a household where someone has lost a job, the man might go down the list -- job, loss of salary, bills, need a new job, find a new job. That's pretty cut and dried, but it's action-oriented. Whereas the woman most likely won't stop there if she's also thinking about tuition, groceries, how the cell phone bill just went up, what the kids need at the mall this weekend for school, and so on. I wonder if we multi-task worry like we multi-task other things, and so it just seems like we worry more.
In my family growing up, both my mom and dad worried but I think only my mom did it out loud. I think my dad internalized it. If we were late getting home at night, my mom would have worried out loud and then be relieved when we finally got there, but it would be my dad who would be furious with us because he'd been so (silently) worried that it was eating him up inside.
Interesting question. Maybe there's also a genetic property that makes one more susceptible to worry, since more women have anxiety disorders. And this page says that (of course) hormonal issues affect anxiety:
Comment Reply
I wonder if it's also a product of the fact that we're wired differently. Studies have shown that men tend to think more linearly and women tend to think about things as related to other things. For instance, in a household where someone has lost a job, the man might go down the list -- job, loss of salary, bills, need a new job, find a new job. That's pretty cut and dried, but it's action-oriented. Whereas the woman most likely won't stop there if she's also thinking about tuition, groceries, how the cell phone bill just went up, what the kids need at the mall this weekend for school, and so on. I wonder if we multi-task worry like we multi-task other things, and so it just seems like we worry more.
In my family growing up, both my mom and dad worried but I think only my mom did it out loud. I think my dad internalized it. If we were late getting home at night, my mom would have worried out loud and then be relieved when we finally got there, but it would be my dad who would be furious with us because he'd been so (silently) worried that it was eating him up inside.
Interesting question. Maybe there's also a genetic property that makes one more susceptible to worry, since more women have anxiety disorders. And this page says that (of course) hormonal issues affect anxiety:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14563101
And here's a story on men, women and anxiety disorders:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AnxietyRisk/story?id=4659845
October 27, 2008 - 9:01amThis Comment
Reply