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The responses of 36 males and 36 females to 3 hr. of total sensory deprivation (SD) or partial SD (light or sound deprivation) were compared. Females scored significantly higher on a measure of verbalized stress derived from ratings of the post-SD interview. Males showed a near-significant (p<.06) tendency for a greater increase in GSR conductance from the baseline to the end of the experiment. Both males and females had more spontaneous fluctuations of GSR in the total SD than in the partial SD conditions. None of the verbal stress measures yielded differences between SD conditions. Personality measures of passivefeminine traits and values and field-dependency in the males did not correlate with either verbal or physiological indices of stress response to SD. The results give limited support to the theory combining set and enforced passivity as explanations of sex differences in response to SD.O E X DIFFERENCES have received little attention in the growing research literature on sensory deprivation (SD) or perceptual isolation, perhaps because most investigators have restricted their studies to men. Holt and Goldberger, 1 working from a psychoanalytic theory, have postulated that normal, heterosexual men with a passive-feminine From the Staten Island Mental Health Society, Bronx, N. Y., and the Research