Sixty-seven women students who were attending a university in southern India and 61 women students who were attending a liberal arts college in New England volunteered to participate in this study. The women supplied demographic information, information about their knowledge and levels of preparedness prior to menarche, and sources of their information about the menstrual cycle. They also completed the Menstrual Attitude Questionnaire (Indian version), the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire, and a test of knowledge about the menstrual cycle. American women scored significantly higher than Indian women on the knowledge test, and they also reported that they had better preparation for menarche than Indian women did. Indian women scored significantly higher than American women on the attitude subscales: Menstruation as a Natural Event and Denial of the Effects of Menstruation. Implications of these findings are discussed in light of cultural messages women receive.

This article reports the results of a preliminary study of ways that self-serving biases contribute to the maintenance of the cultural stereotype of the premenstrual woman. Self-serving biases such as illusory optimism and the false uniqueness effect lead individuals to believe that they are better than average and less likely to have negative experiences. Thus, even though individual women's premenstrual symptoms are mild to moderate, they accept the stereotype because they believe that other women's symptoms are worse than their own. Participants were 92 undergraduate women from two small colleges in southern New England. They completed measures of optimism, locus of control, and premenstrual symptoms and answered a series of questions about the incidence of PMS. Participants showed a significant tendency to believe that other women's premenstrual symptoms are worse than their own. In addition, women who were high in optimism were significantly less likely to believe that they could be diagnosed with PMS, and they had significantly lower scores on the pain and behavior change subscales of the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire than did those low in optimism.

The present study investigated American women's attitudes toward menstrual suppression and the effect of priming attitudes toward menstruation on women's willingness to suppress menstruation. One hundred college women randomly were assigned to either a positive priming group or a negative priming group. The positive priming group first completed the menstrual joy questionnaire (MJQ) followed by a willingness to suppress menstruation (WSM) questionnaire, the beliefs and attitudes toward menstruation (BATM) questionnaire, the menstrual distress questionnaire (MDQ), and a demographic questionnaire. The negative priming group completed, in the following order: the MDQ, WSM, BATM, MJQ, and demographics. Priming affected women's reports of positive cycle-related changes on the MDQ, but not women's willingness to suppress menstruation. Higher scores on the MJQ, positive attitudes toward menstrual suppression, and previous oral contraceptive (OC) use were predictors of women's willingness to suppress menstruation. Women's primary source of information about menstrual suppression was "media," and their primary concern was "safety." Thus, researchers should continue to investigate the long-term effects of continuous OC use and to analyze information about menstrual suppression in the popular press.

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