Why Men are said to be from MARS and Women from VENUS.......?

well never heard yet abt like that

Researchers from Brigham Young University and Stanford wanted to investigate whether men really are from Mars and women really are from Venus, and they found, at least among depressed individuals, that the answer is a resounding no -- both genders are from Earth. The images of a depressed woman pining for a lost love or a hardy man weakened with self-doubt after a career nose dive are common ones, universalized by popular literature like John Gray's series Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand. Similarly, many psychologists have proposed differences between men and women in communication style, values and vulnerability to depression. This approach includes the presumption that depressed women are more concerned about relationship problems and feelings, whereas depressed men are more self-critical about work or achievement related problems. In a study published in the October 2000 issue of the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, BYU's Diane Spangler and Stanford's David Burns prove that notion false, showing that worries about being unloved or being a failure are standard human concerns, not gender concerns. The researchers are calling for more research to tear down the wall between genders they believe has been built by previous, unscientific psychological and popular literature. "There has been a lot of this gender-differentiating stuff floating around in the professional literature for a while, and now you're seeing it spill over into the popular culture," said Spangler, assistant professor of clinical psychology at BYU. "Of course our work is limited to depressed individuals, but hopefully it will be a part of a growing movement to debunk gender stereotypes. If different researchers explore it in their own areas of expertise it will be much more difficult to hold these assumptions. Then hopefully that will leak out into the lay literature and reach those who really need to hear it -- everyday people." Spangler and Burns studied 427 individuals suffering from clinical depression, a condition which affects an estimated 16% percent of the U.S. population sometime during their lifetime. They measured the degree to which the study participants were "dependent" or "perfectionist." Using a state-of-the-art statistical tool called structural equation modeling, the researchers repeatedly found no correlation between the gender of patients and the level of dependency or perfectionism they suffered from. "Depressed women and men do not differ in levels of dependency or perfectionism, and both ... depressed women and depressed men present to therapy with dependent and perfectionistic concerns to similar degrees," the researchers wrote. "The results of the study reflect my own clinical practice treating many depressed men and women for 25 years," says Burns, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford School of Medicine. "Men and women have voiced similar concerns and shown similar vulnerabilities for the most part. Men and women both get profoundly disturbed by rejection, disapproval, or feeling alone and abandoned. But these are stereotypically 'women's concerns.' This never made much sense to me, based on my clinical practice, and now the research has supported those clinical impressions. Women and men are also both vulnerable to beating up on themselves when they fail or make a mistake or when they are not as good as they think they should be." The editor of the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy called the study "the most sophisticated analysis of data" on the issue of dependency and perfectionism in depression. "(Spangler and Burns) found that men and women get depressed over the same things -- that is, both achievement and relationship issues -- in the same proportions," said Robert Leahy, who is also director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy in New York City and a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Cornell University Medical College. "Moreover, they found that men and women get better for the same reasons. I guess we can say that men and women are both from the same planet -- Earth." Spangler grows visibly miffed when discussing the fact that therapists have been fed the notion that patients' levels and types of depression may be gender-specific."Some issues that are important to the patient get ignored," she says. "If they have problems in some areas they just aren't taken as seriously and don't get treated as comprehensively." Proceeding under the assumption that women's depression is more likely to be centered on dependency issues could lead a therapist to question a patient about relationships with her spouse and children when the problem may lie somewhere else, she explains. By the same token, Spangler says, a male patient might be asked excessive questions about his job and career performance when he might be concerned about friendships. Such popular notions not grounded in fact extend outside the treatment of depression, Spangler says. "I'm from Venus and you're from Mars and we're aliens," she says rhetorically. That implies such black and white thinking. 'Women are more caring' -- does that mean that men aren't caring? That's offensive to me, and I'm not even male." Although her study was limited to gender issues and depression, Spangler is concerned that gender stereotypes pervade other areas of academic study and popular culture. "These are widespread theories," she explains. "Within every different camp or school of thought in psychology you'll find this notion that women deal more with dependency and men more with perfectionism." Her co-author explains a kind of scientific inertia currently at work in the field of psychology. "Dr. Spangler and I find that many popular theories are simply wrong," says Burns. "We also find that people are often not very receptive to hearing this, including mental health professionals. That's unfortunate because science can only move forward when wrong theories are rejected so that new and more useful theories can emerge." Spangler doesn't hesitate to point a finger at psychologists who put popularity above science. "A lot of these ideas are generated by someone's opinion or a desire to sell books, and not from data," she says. "As a scientist I believe it takes systematic conclusive study, rather than anecdotal experiences, to make definitive statements about the nature of depression and about gender differences as a whole." But if books advocating the notion of gender differences are so inaccurate, why do they sell like Danielle Steele novels? "They hit home because parts of them relate to everybody -- that's how they are designed," Spangler says. "Just like astrologers design their work -- I can read a horoscope for each sign of the Zodiac and make each one apply to me somehow. If this effect of inherent gender differences is so strong, why don't we see it in the data?" Despite fallacies in the popular literature, Spangler says the ideas are embraced because they allow people an excuse not to spend the time and emotional energy necessary to truly understand each other. "People like to hold on to stereotypes because they make life efficient," she says. "If you can look at a man or woman and not have to understand them or decide anything about them, but instead just apply a kind of shorthand to them, then it makes life easier for you." The end result of these theories seeping into the way regular people think can affect people more than they realize. "These ways of thinking have created a stereotype that's inaccurate and can be damaging in its inaccuracy and impact on people's lives and in their relationships," Spangler says, emotion returning to her voice. "They tell people how their husband or wife should or shouldn't feel, how their son or daughter should or shouldn't feel. I truly believe it's damaging to people, and if I didn't I wouldn't care so much." Spangler commends any attitude that emphasizes sensitivity to others' differences, but she cautions against grouping those differences together. "This isn't about gender, it's about your personality," she says. "It's a great thing to realize that everyone doesn't think like you, but that it's not because they're a man or a woman, it's because they're human." - Brigham Young University