Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T11:59:28.964Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Women take risks to help others to stay alive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2022

Alice H. Eagly*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA eagly@northwestern.eduhttps://psychology.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/emeritus/profiles/alice-eagly.html

Abstract

Evidence that women voluntarily expose themselves to some threats more than men do challenges the generalizability of the claim that women exceed men in self-protective responses. Examples include women's higher rates of living organ donation and rescuing Jews during the holocaust. In general, women's efforts to keep other people alive can take precedence over their efforts to protect themselves.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Archer, J. (2019). The reality and evolutionary significance of human psychological sex differences. Biological Reviews, 94(4), 13811415. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12507Google ScholarPubMed
Becker, S. W., & Eagly, A. H. (2004). The heroism of women and men. American Psychologist, 59(3), 163178. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.3.163CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beit-Hallahmi, B. (2003). Religion, religiosity, and gender. The Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Men and Women in the World's Cultures, 1, 117127. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29907-6_12CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellos, I., & Pergialiotis, V. (2022). Risk of pregnancy complications in living kidney donors: A systematic review and meta-analysis. European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, 270, 3541. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejogrb.2021.12.037.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Choi, J. Y., Kim, J. H., Kim, J. M., Kim, H. J., Ahn, H. S., & Joh, J. W. (2021). Outcomes of living liver donors are worse than those of matched healthy controls. Journal of Hepatology, 76(3), 628638. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhep.2021.10..031.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dahlgren, A., DeRoo, L., Avril, J., Bise, G., & Loutan, L. (2009). Health risks and risk-taking behaviors among International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expatriates returning from humanitarian missions, Journal of Travel Medicine, 16(6), 382390. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1708-8305.2009.00350.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eagly, A. H. (2009). The his and hers of prosocial behavior: An examination of the social psychology of gender. American Psychologist, 64(8), 644658. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.64.8.644CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eagly, A. H., & Wood, W. (2012). Social role theory. In van Lange, A. M., Kruglanski, A., & Higgins, E. T. (Eds.), Handbook of theories in social psychology (pp. 458476). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446249222.n49CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eagly, A. H., & Wood, W. (2013). The nature-nurture debates: 25 years of challenges in understanding the psychology of gender. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 8(3): 340357. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691613484767CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fu, R., Sekercioglu, N., Hishida, M., & Coyte, P. C. (2021). Economic consequences of adult living kidney donation: A systematic review. Value in Health, 24(4), 592601. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2020.10.005CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, M. (2003). The righteous: The unsung heroes of the holocaust. Holt.Google Scholar
Hsu, C. Y., Iribarren, C., McCulloch, C. E., Darbinian, J., & Go, A. S. (2009). Risk factors for end-stage renal disease: 25-year follow-up. Archives of Internal Medicine, 169(4), 342350. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2008.605CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kurnikowski, A., Krenn, S., Lewandowski, M. J., Schwaiger, E., Tong, A., Jager, K. J., … Hödlmoser, S. (2021). Country-specific sex disparities in living kidney donation. Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation, 37(3), 595598. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lentine, K. L., Lam, N. N., & Segev, D. L. (2019). Risks of living kidney donation: Current state of knowledge on outcomes important to donors. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 14(4), 597608. https://doi.org/10.2215/CJN.11220918CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mudalige, N. L., Brown, C., & Marks, S. D. (2022). The impact of donor and recipient sex on kidney allograft survival in pediatric transplant recipients. Pediatric Nephrology, 37(1), 209216. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00467-021-05071-2CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Keeffe, L. M., Ramond, A., Oliver-Williams, C., Willeit, P., Paige, E., Trotter, P., …Di Angelantonio, E. (2018). Mid- and long-term health risks in living kidney donors: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Annals of Internal Medicine, 168(4), 276284. https://doi.org/10.7326/M17-1235CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oliner, S. P., & Oliner, P. M. (1988). The altruistic personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe. Free Press.Google Scholar
Peace Corps. (2018). The health of the volunteer. https://www.google.com/Google Scholar
Post, S. G. (2002). The tradition of agape. In Post, S. G., Underwood, L. G., Schloss, P., & Hurlbut, W. B. (Eds.), Altruism & altruistic love: Science, philosophy, & religion in dialogue (pp. 5166). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195143584.003.0006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prasad, G. R. (2018). Understanding the sex disparity in living kidney donation. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 24(5), 9991004. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13015CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwartz, S. H., & Rubel, T. (2005). Sex differences in value priorities: Cross-cultural and multimethod studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(6), 10101028. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.6.1010CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Turner, J. A., Klein, B. W., & Sorrentino, C. (2020). Making volunteer work visible: Supplementary measures of work in labor force statistics. Monthly Labor Review, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2020.15CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United Nations. (2018). State of the world's volunteerism report. https://www.un-ilibrary.org/content/periodicals/26180448Google Scholar
U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. (2021). National data. https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/data/view-data-reports/national-data/Google Scholar