MEN ARE INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY - A COMMENT ON THE EXAMINATION OF SEX-DIFFERENCES BY PIERCE AND KIRKPATRICK (1992)

Pierce and Kirkpatrick (1992, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 30, 415- 418) addressed the finding that men reported lower levels of fear than women in response to specific fear items and concluded on the basis o f their experiment that this was because the men were lying. Their con clusion is questioned on various grounds, including inappropriate stat istical analyses, inadequate treatment of physiological data, failure to address the possibility of sample selection bias (signalled by the high drop-out rate) and the inadequacy of self-assessed fear measures based on a small number of single items. An alternative interpretation of their data is offered, based on the inverse correlation between in itial response level and size of increment, demonstrable in their stud y in males but not in females. It is argued here that the increments m ay have been due to anticipatory arousal, a mediating factor that woul d also account for the facilitation of generalization between certain specific items. It is further suggested that, if this explanation is c orrect, the men were acting with more rather than less honesty, and it may on the other hand be the reports of the females that were affecte d by their sex-role stereotype. Another possible explanation of the fi ndings is discussed. If men relatively high in masculinity had a great er tendency to drop out, the experimental sample at the second testing would be biased towards men relatively low in masculinity and reporti ng higher fear levels.