Gender Differences in Dream Content: Related to Biological Sex or Sex Role Orientation?
- 1 October 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Imagination, Cognition and Personality
- Vol. 30 (2), 171-183
- https://doi.org/10.2190/ic.30.2.e
Abstract
Despite the large number of studies addressing gender differences in dream recall and dream content, research regarding whether these differences might be affected by sex role orientation is rather scarce. The present online-survey included a large sample of most recent dreams. The results clearly indicate that sex role orientation (femininity/expressivity and masculinity/instrumentality) affect the same dream characteristics that show marked gender differences (e.g., sexual dream content, physical aggression). Whereas the effect of sex role orientation on dream content support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming, the effect of biological sex on dream content does not exclude that other variables (such as, for example, the amount of sexual fantasies during waking) have an effect on dream content in addition to sex role orientation. Thus, future studies have to elicit more waking-life variables in order to model the varying daytime experiences of men and women in order to investigate whether these daytime differences sufficiently explain gender differences in dreaming or whether biological factors are also of importance.Keywords
This publication has 28 references indexed in Scilit:
- Depression as a Function of Expressiveness/Instrumentality Among NursesPerspectives in Psychiatric Care, 2009
- Dreams, emotions, and social sharing of dreamsCognition and Emotion, 2007
- Disturbed dreaming, posttraumatic stress disorder, and affect distress: A review and neurocognitive model.Psychological Bulletin, 2007
- Expressivität, Instrumentalität und psychische GesundheitZeitschrift für Differentielle und Diagnostische Psychologie, 2004
- Finding Meaning in DreamsPublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,1996
- Beyond sex differences: Family and occupational roles' impact on women's and men's dreamsSex Roles, 1992
- "A ubiquitous sex difference in dreams" revisited.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1984
- The Dreams of College Men and Women in 1950 and 1980: A Comparison of Dream Contents and Sex DifferencesSleep, 1982
- Sex role orientation and dream recall.Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1973
- Aggression in DreamsInternational Journal of Social Psychiatry, 1963