Gender differences in grief narrative construction: a myth or reality?

Abstract

Background: Narratives play a central role in the recovery process following death, and linguistic properties of grief narratives can serve as indicators of adjustment to loss. The present study examined whether bereaved men and women differ in how they discuss their loss, and how linguistic markers relate to psychological functioning. Positive associations were hypothesized between first-person singular pronoun use and psychological distress. Gender differences were expected for different emotion and social process words, and overall word use. Exploratory analyses were conducted to assess the relationship between linguistic markers and psychosocial outcomes for men and women separately.Method: 50 bereaved widow(er)s and parents (29 women, 21 men; MAge = 71.16 years, SD = 9.95) completed psychosocial self-report questionnaires and individual in-depth interviews. Grief narratives were analysed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), a software program that quantifies words into linguistic and psychological categories.Results: Contrary to our hypothesis, first-person pronoun use was not related to psychological distress. Although gender differences emerged in self-reported psychosocial outcomes, we failed to find the predicted gender differences in linguistic markers (emotion and social process words, overall word count). Exploratory analyses revealed additional associations between linguistic markers and psychosocial outcomes, and gender differences in these relationships. Notably, first-person pronoun use was related to heightened grief avoidance. Furthermore, various linguistic markers were associated with increased depression levels in females, but not males. In contrast, nonfluencies were positively associated with indicators of psychological distress in men only.Conclusion: In line with the gender similarities hypothesis, analyses suggest similarities between men and women’s discussion of their grief experience. Associations between linguistic markers and psychological adjustment indicate that grief narratives contain meaningful indices of underlying health.

Prolonged Grief Disorder Among Refugees in Psychological Treatment—Association With Self-Efficacy and Emotion Regulation

“…Yet considering that the female might be at higher risk for PGD following violent loss (73), the high amount of male in our sample might have lowered the prevalence of probable PGD diagnosis. Furthermore, gender-specific processes or social norms might influence the way that individuals express grief symptoms (74,75). These aspects need further exploration.…”

Impact of Perinatal Death on the Social and Family Context of the Parents

“…On the one hand, the father is imbued with a social role of providing physical and emotional support for mothers, rendering his feelings, experiences and needs invisible [30]; on the other hand, the attachment and bond of a father is considered to be more rational and less passionate [31] since a mother creates her bond with the fetus from the first weeks of pregnancy and this is reaffirmed with fetal movements [32]. However, the risk of dysfunctional grief and the symptoms of psychological trauma is common in both sexes [33,34], although less studied in fathers [29].…”

Promoting Gender Equality by Supporting Men’s Emotional Flexibility

“…Specifically, a recent study examining grief narratives in a small sample of bereaved adults revealed a relationship between men's use of linguistic nonfluencies (e.g., "uh," "um," etc.) and their self-reported psychological distress, but this relationship did not emerge among women in the sample (Stelzer et al, 2019). One possible explanation for this pattern is that, because men are socialized to remain tough and stoic, men might have had less practice expressing their grief in emotionally vulnerable ways, which would facilitate their capacity to draw meaning from the experience of loss.…”