Thirty-two male and 68 female college students differing in self-estee
m indicated the extent of their agreement with statements concerning g
ender-related social issues and they also predicted the opinions of a
member of the other gender. Measures of negativity toward others, self
-esteem, and physical pain were evaluated as a function of menstrual c
ycle phase. Low self-esteem students held more stereotype attitudes as
compared to high self-esteem students, F(1,96) = 4.31, p = .038. Whil
e the males accurately judged the opinions of the females, the females
predicted that the males were more negatively biased than the actual
opinions expressed by the males would indicate (p<.001 for all interac
tion effects). Measures of self-esteem, social-sexual attitudes and de
pression were not significantly influenced by menstrual cycle phase. T
he results indicated that women's negativity toward men appears to res
ult from frustrations experienced by women in the face of unfilled exp
ectations rather than to Low self-esteem. The results also support pre
vious findings that variations in gonadal hormone levels appear not to
be an important factor in women's moods.