Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The sexes are not equal in their vulnerabilities to specific diseases of the mind and body. Beyond biological sex differences throughout lifespan development, stress-related psychological and physiological processes are also shaped by socio-cultural gender diversity. In this study of 204 psychiatric hospital workers, we assessed how factors related to sex (male/female, sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen) and gender (gender-roles representing masculine and feminine stereotypes, sexual orientation) would relate to stress hormones and mental health. Our findings reveal that binary sex explains only a fraction of individual differences in stress physiology and mental health in comparison to sex hormones and gender-based factors. This study demonstrates the importance of delineating sex/gender factors in psychobiological research.