Neuroscience
Women do seem to cry more readily than men, but is that because they are less able to control their emotions? According to Ute Habel and colleagues, research does suggest women are more 'emotional'. They cite the fact that women are more vulnerable to emotional disorders, and a study showing men are better able than women to control their negative emotions.
So if this gender difference is true, what is happening in men's brains when they exert control over their emotions, and how does it differ from female brain activity in similar circumstances?
Habel and colleagues scanned the brains of 19 women and 21 men while they performed a simple verbal memory task. On some trials the participants were also exposed to the smell of rotting yeast, thus triggering the negative emotion of disgust.
The smell impaired the participants' performance, but to the researchers' surprise, the women were no more affected by the horrible smell than the men, ostensibly contradicting the notion that women are less able to control negative emotion. However, the researchers pointed out this didn't mean their brain imaging findings wouldn't reveal differences in the way the male and female participants processed emotions and exerted cognitive control during the memory task.
Indeed, key gender differences were found. Women showed greater brain activation to the smell on its own, and to the memory task on its own. And, crucially, when they performed the memory task while exposed to the smell, they didn't show any activation indicative of an interaction – it was as if the smell and memory task were processed in parallel.
In contrast, when the men performed the task while exposed to the smell, there was evidence of interaction between cognitive and emotional areas in the brain, with cognitive activation seemingly outweighing emotion-associated activation.
“These results provide initial evidence for the assumption that the interaction between emotion and cognition relies on differential processing mechanisms in men and women,” the researchers said.
_________________________________
Kock, K., Pauly, K., Kellermann, T., Seiferth, N.Y., Reske, M., Backes, V., Stocker, T., Shah, N.J., Amunts, K., Kircher, T., Schneider, F. & Habel, U. (2007). Gender differences in the cognitive control of emotion: An fMRI study. Neuropsychologia, 45, 2744-2754.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Image credit: Wellcome Library, London. BELL, Sir Charles (1774-1842) Sir Charles Bell, The anatomy of the brain explained in a series of plates, 1823. Plate 1, watercolour drawing of the brain.
- Sweaty Work In The Hunt For The Brain Basis Of Social Anxiety
Anxiety has overtaken depression to become the most commonly diagnosed psychological disorder in the United States, with social anxiety its most frequent manifestation. Part of the cause of extreme social anxiety is thought to be related to...
- Women's Memories Are More Speech-filled Than Men's
To gasps of surprise from some quarters, a spate of recent studies have shown that women don't talk any more than men do. But now Richard Ely and Elizabeth Ryan have looked at people's autobiographical memories and found that while women may not...
- Hemispheric Specialisation Depends On Brain State
The idea that the two hemispheres of the brain are specialised for different tasks was popularised in the 1940s by experiments with split-brain patients, in whom the nerve fibres connecting their cerebral hemispheres had been severed. But when healthy...
- Sweat, Urine, And Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation May Affect Brain Response to Human Pheromones By Miranda Hitti WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD on Monday, May 08, 2006 May 8, 2006 -- Lesbian women and heterosexual women respond differently...
- Celebrating Olfaction
Sunday, April 30 is National Sense of Smell Day, and the Sense of Smell Institute is ready. Their web site includes bibliographies on topics like odor perception and the brain and human behavior, mood, and emotion (aka aroma-chology). Plus fun activities...
Neuroscience
Inside the brains of men and women controlling their emotions
Women do seem to cry more readily than men, but is that because they are less able to control their emotions? According to Ute Habel and colleagues, research does suggest women are more 'emotional'. They cite the fact that women are more vulnerable to emotional disorders, and a study showing men are better able than women to control their negative emotions.So if this gender difference is true, what is happening in men's brains when they exert control over their emotions, and how does it differ from female brain activity in similar circumstances?
Habel and colleagues scanned the brains of 19 women and 21 men while they performed a simple verbal memory task. On some trials the participants were also exposed to the smell of rotting yeast, thus triggering the negative emotion of disgust.
The smell impaired the participants' performance, but to the researchers' surprise, the women were no more affected by the horrible smell than the men, ostensibly contradicting the notion that women are less able to control negative emotion. However, the researchers pointed out this didn't mean their brain imaging findings wouldn't reveal differences in the way the male and female participants processed emotions and exerted cognitive control during the memory task.
Indeed, key gender differences were found. Women showed greater brain activation to the smell on its own, and to the memory task on its own. And, crucially, when they performed the memory task while exposed to the smell, they didn't show any activation indicative of an interaction – it was as if the smell and memory task were processed in parallel.
In contrast, when the men performed the task while exposed to the smell, there was evidence of interaction between cognitive and emotional areas in the brain, with cognitive activation seemingly outweighing emotion-associated activation.
“These results provide initial evidence for the assumption that the interaction between emotion and cognition relies on differential processing mechanisms in men and women,” the researchers said.
_________________________________
Kock, K., Pauly, K., Kellermann, T., Seiferth, N.Y., Reske, M., Backes, V., Stocker, T., Shah, N.J., Amunts, K., Kircher, T., Schneider, F. & Habel, U. (2007). Gender differences in the cognitive control of emotion: An fMRI study. Neuropsychologia, 45, 2744-2754.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Image credit: Wellcome Library, London. BELL, Sir Charles (1774-1842) Sir Charles Bell, The anatomy of the brain explained in a series of plates, 1823. Plate 1, watercolour drawing of the brain.
- Sweaty Work In The Hunt For The Brain Basis Of Social Anxiety
Anxiety has overtaken depression to become the most commonly diagnosed psychological disorder in the United States, with social anxiety its most frequent manifestation. Part of the cause of extreme social anxiety is thought to be related to...
- Women's Memories Are More Speech-filled Than Men's
To gasps of surprise from some quarters, a spate of recent studies have shown that women don't talk any more than men do. But now Richard Ely and Elizabeth Ryan have looked at people's autobiographical memories and found that while women may not...
- Hemispheric Specialisation Depends On Brain State
The idea that the two hemispheres of the brain are specialised for different tasks was popularised in the 1940s by experiments with split-brain patients, in whom the nerve fibres connecting their cerebral hemispheres had been severed. But when healthy...
- Sweat, Urine, And Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation May Affect Brain Response to Human Pheromones By Miranda Hitti WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD on Monday, May 08, 2006 May 8, 2006 -- Lesbian women and heterosexual women respond differently...
- Celebrating Olfaction
Sunday, April 30 is National Sense of Smell Day, and the Sense of Smell Institute is ready. Their web site includes bibliographies on topics like odor perception and the brain and human behavior, mood, and emotion (aka aroma-chology). Plus fun activities...