The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Relationships and Health 405

Relationship Breakup

There is some evidence that women adjust

better than men to the breakup of dating re-

lationships (Choo, Levine, & Hatfield, 1996).

In a study of long-distance college student

dating relationships, women adjusted better

than men to the breakup (Helgeson, 1994a).

Just over 100 students were enrolled in the

study at the beginning of the school year and

were followed for one semester. At the end of

the semester, 36% of the couples had broken

up. As shown in Figure 11.6, at the beginning

of the study, when the couples were together

(Time 1), women were more distressed than

distinct in terms of other parameters from

the already widowed. Because widowhood

can be a longer process for some people, the

events leading up to widowhood may take

their toll on health.

TAKE HOME POINTS

■ There are a number of methodological difficulties when

studying the effects of widowhood on health:

■ An appropriate comparison group must be selected

as women and men have different health prior to

widowhood. The most appropriate group is married

people, as both married and widowed people have

selected into marriage.

■ Cross-sectional studies, while easy to conduct, pose

several difficulties, including the inability to deter-

mine causation, the fact that the healthiest people

might have remarried, and the varying time frames

since widowhood.

■ Studies generally show that widowhood is associated

with greater adverse effects on men’s than women’s

health across an array of health indicators.

■ Reasons for this sex difference have to do with the

different strains men and women face and the greater

loss of support that a spouse’s death poses for men

compared to women.

Effect of Relationship Dissolution on Health

Evidence clearly suggests that marriage is

associated with greater health benefits for

men than for women and that the loss of

marriage through widowhood is associated

with greater harm to men’s than women’s

health. Can we conclude that the breakup

of marriage or other significant relation-

ships has more adverse effects on men’s than

women’s health? The answer is not as clear.

Distress

–0.3

–0.2

–0.1

0

0.1

0.2

0.3 Women, Dating

Men, Broken Up

Women, Broken Up

Men, Dating

Time 1 Time 2

FIGURE 11.6 At the beginning of the semester,

when relationships were intact (Time 1), women

were more distressed than men. By the end of the

semester, when a third of couples had broken up

(Time 2), women’s distress levels did not signifi-

cantly differ from those of men. This is because

women were more distressed than men among

couples who remained together but were less dis-

tressed than men among couples who had broken

up. Women’s distress level decreased following

breakup, whereas men’s distress level increased

following breakup.

Source: V. S. Helgeson (1994). Long distance

romantic relationships: Sex differences in

adjustment and breakup. Personality and Social

Psychology Bulletin, 20, 254–265.

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