Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 3, 2025

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Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults
Published on: October 19, 2014
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Female advantage in threat avoidance manifests in threat reaction but not threat detection
David S March1, Lowell Gaertner2
1Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4301, USA march@psy.fsu.eduhttps://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/marchd/march.dp.php.
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences
|July 25, 2022
Abstract:
Threat avoidance involves both detection of a threatening stimulus and reaction to it. We demonstrate with empirically validated stimuli (that are threatening, nonthreatening-negative, neutral, or positive) that threat detection is more pronounced among males, whereas threat reactivity is more pronounced among females. Why women are less efficient detectors of threat challenges Benenson et al.'s conceptual analysis.

