Processes underlying gender-role flexibility: do androgynous individuals know more or know how to cope?

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Stress and Coping Research

Background:

• Gender roles influence psychological flexibility and coping strategies.
• Androgyny, characterized by flexible gender-role expression, is hypothesized to enhance coping.
• Two hypotheses, "knowing-more" and "knowing-how," explain androgyny's link to coping.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine gender-role flexibility in response to diverse stressful events.
• To test the "knowing-more" and "knowing-how" hypotheses regarding androgyny and coping.
• To investigate the coping mechanisms of Chinese university students under stress.

Main Methods:

• Assessed coping responses of Chinese university students in real-life and hypothetical stressful situations (Studies 1 & 2).
• Evaluated participants' cognitive abilities in distinguishing situational characteristics.
• Measured the deployment of situationally appropriate coping strategies.

Main Results:

• Androgynous participants exhibited less depression compared to others.
• Androgynous individuals demonstrated cognitive astuteness in differentiating situational demands.
• They effectively deployed coping strategies tailored to specific situational characteristics.
• Findings supported the "knowing-how" hypothesis exclusively.

Conclusions:

• Gender-role flexibility, particularly androgyny, is linked to adaptive coping.
• The ability to "know how" to cope situationally is more critical than merely "knowing more" coping strategies.
• Androgyny facilitates effective stress management through situational adaptation.