While Katerndahl’s study seems to imply that women are more prone to anxiety and and feeling a lack of control. Biologically, research shows that men and women are actually not all that different. Pertaining to cognition, men are more suited for mental rotation, navigation using geometry and recognizing objects within visual backgrounds. Women show better memory for locating objects and navigating through the use of landmarks (Allen, Goldscheider, & Ciambrone, 1999; Baider et al. , 1995; Ben-Tov, 1992; Ptacek et al. , 1994).
As far as motor skills, from age 3-5 years old onward, men show an exceptional accuracy at aiming projectiles, while women show the ability for exceptional speech rate and small amplitude coordination. Pertaining to math skills, men are best suited for solving abstract reasoning problems, while women tend to be statistically best at computation and calculation problem solving.
As far as verbal abilities go, women show earlier development of virtually every aspect of verbal ability, verbal memory, spelling grammar and fluency (Oren & Sherer, 2001). When emotions come into play, men and women use different areas of their brains to control sexuality, but most of the chemical systems overlap and most of the social bonding is somehow connected to the sexual process. Men and women have different forms of aggression.
In most mammals, men tend to be the aggressor; many forms of aggression are controlled through different neural pathways (Oren & Sherer, 2001). BNST manages ‘affective attack’; this region is sensitized by testosterone and desensitized by estrogen. AVP stimulation increases aggressive behavior and drives persistence; circuits for this neuron are also more prevalent in males than in Females (Allen, Goldscheider, & Ciambrone, 1999; Baider et al. , 1995; Ben-Tov, 1992; Ptacek et al. , 1994).
The mild biological differences that exist between men and women can only be significantly contrast their methods of responding to stress when the stressor in some way capitalizes on either sex’s chemical weakness. For example, men are psychologically more prone to substance abuse; a man under the influence of a substance that inhibits or enhances the circulation of AVP would affect the testosterone levels in the male’s body, thus making him more or less aggressive.
This shift in behavior would entirely be dependent on whether the male abuses substances as a coping strategy for stress. This would have the same effect for a woman, but men are more prone to this dysfunctional behavior. Oddly enough, maternal stress can lead to a drop testosterone development desynchronizing or preventing masculinization. Stress can also effect the human body’s ability to heal itself when sick or influence the method of coping with disease.