Gender Differences in Strain, Negative Emotions, and Coping Behaviors: A General Strain Theory Approach

This paper empirically evaluates Broidy and Agnew’s propositions, in which they apply general strain theory to explain gender differences in crime and deviance, by analyzing data from a national survey of adult African Americans. First, African American women were more likely to report strains related to physical health, interpersonal relations, gender roles in the family, and less likely to mention work-related, racial as well as job strain than African American men. Second, African American women were less likely than African American men to turn to deviant coping strategies when they experienced strain partly because their strains were more likely to generate self-directed emotions, such as depression and anxiety, which in turn were less likely to lead to deviant coping behaviors than other-directed, angry emotion. Finally, it was found that the self-directed emotions were more likely to result in nondeviant, legitimate coping behaviors than other-directed emotion, anger.