Sex Roles (2010) 63:149–164 DOI 10.1007/s11199-010-9749-7

FEMINIST FORUM

Who Benefits from Pennebaker’s Expressive Writing Paradigm? Research Recommendations from Three Gender Theories Lillian M. Range & Sharon Rae Jenkins

Published online: 2 April 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

Abstract Pennebaker’s experimental writing paradigm quantifies who, when, and how people benefit from writing about trauma, but researchers and meta-analyses thus far have rarely considered gender. Gender theories specify useful research strategies. Gender schema theory suggests examining gendered measurement biases, gender-relevant writing content, and whether traditional masculinity predicts benefits. Social role theory suggests assessing physician visits, disclosure history, and privacy as possible moderators of benefits. Socialization theory suggests assessing emotional approach coping, imagined readers, alexithymia, and whether mastery instructions influence benefits. All specify measuring functionally related gender constructs (gender schemas, gender roles, and socialization), asking whether gender proxies co-varying moderators and mediators of benefits, and examining possible linkages between benefits, trauma type, and disclosure. Help-seeking and somatization require integrated theoretical approaches. Keywords Gender schema . Gender role . Gender socialization . Expressive writing . Pennebaker

thinking, and improves overall functioning. People particularly benefit from confiding about traumas (Vrij et al. 2002); and, putting feelings into words may help, whether or not shared (Lepore and Smyth 2002). Though disclosure occurs naturally and can be observed and correlated with important variables, an experimental writing paradigm (Pennebaker et al. 1988) enables quantification of who benefits; and, when, and how they benefit from trauma writing. Despite gender differences in social support (Neff and Karney, 2005; Rueger et al. 2008), few studies and no meta-analyses directly examined gender differences in benefits from writing, though knowing whether, and how, gender differences occur could help in devising trauma interventions. Thus, we describe this expressive writing paradigm and indirect gender findings gender; use gender schema (Bem 1984), social role (Eagly 1987), and socialization (Burn 1996) theory to generate potential research questions for this research; and, identify important outcomes, mediators, moderators, process variables, and possible explanatory mechanisms for gender differences. Different processes consistent with each theory may result in gender similarities or differences in overall benefits.

Introduction Pennebaker’s Writing Paradigm Counseling, psychotherapy, and social support research indicates confiding in others reduces stress, clarifies L. M. Range (*) Our Lady of Holy Cross College, New Orleans, LA 70131, USA e-mail: [email protected] S. R. Jenkins University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

Research interest in Pennebaker’s design has been strong. Since a 1986 initial study (Pennebaker and Beall 1986), by 2008 over 200 expressive writing studies had been published (Smyth and Pennebaker 2008). A recent metaanalysis of this research (Frattaroli 2006) yielded an overall effect size of .08 (Cohen’s d). Although traditional laboratory research might consider such an effect size small, any brief, low-cost, intervention that produces meaningful benefits several weeks later is impressive.

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Pennebaker’s design involves random assignment to one of at least two groups who write for 15–20 min on four days (with some variations), and complete tests before (pretest), after (post-test), and again a day, a week, or several months later (follow-up test). Experimental group(s) write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about stress or trauma, such as “very deepest thoughts and feelings about coming to college” (Pennebaker et al. 1990, p. 531), or “the most traumatic and upsetting experiences of your entire life” (Richards et al. 2000, p. 157). Some writers choose the trauma, so on different days may write about the same or different traumas; others receive a topic, such as previous sexual trauma (Antal and Range 2005), or entering college (Pennebaker et al. 1990). Controls write about innocuous topics such as their previous meal (Deters and Range 2003) or time management (Ames et al. 2007). The experimental design is typically 2 (Writing Topic) by 3 (Pre-, Post-, and Follow-Up) mixed between/within subjects. Trauma-writers improving significantly more than controls at follow-up would indicate that writing about trauma improved functioning more than writing about an innocuous topic. Writing paradigm research shows benefits for experimental compared to control writers. Physical benefits include shorter hospital stays (Solano et al. 2007); fewer health visits (Baikie 2008; Range and Kovac 2002; Richards et al. 2000; Rosenberg et al. 2002), physical complaints (Rosenberg et al. 2002), or upper respiratory problems (Greenberg et al. 1996); less fatigue (Danoff-Burg et al. 2006); and, improved immunity (Pennebaker et al. 1988), wound healing (Weinman et al. 2008), smoking resistance (Ames et al. 2007), and therapy progress (Graf et al. 2008). Psychological or general benefits include reduced work absence (Francis and Pennebaker 1992); improved college grades (Pennebaker and Francis 1996); faster reemployment (Spera et al. 1994); less affective dysfunction (Smyth et al. 1999); and, less unique grief (Kovac and Range 2000), anxiety, and depression (Graf et al. 2008). Benefits occur across settings, participants, and dependent variables. Not all research agrees, however. Some reports no physical or psychological improvement (Rosenberg et al. 2002; Stroebe et al. 2002); and no reduction in asthma (Harris et al. 2005), posttraumatic stress (Deters and Range 2003), grief (Range et al. 2000), suicide ideas (Antal and Range 2005; Kovac and Range 2002), anxiety, or depression (Antal and Range 2005). A few projects found writing harmful. Among 40 inpatient men undergoing transurethral prostate resection, those at low risk benefited, but those at high risk declined slightly (Solano et al. 2007). Among 14 Israeli adults (8 women, 6 men) with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), trauma writers had more health clinic visits (Gidron et al. 1996). Among 23 lower limb amputees, stronger emotional disclosure correlated with reduced

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prosthesis satisfaction (Gallagher and Maclachlan 2002). Thus, the impressive benefits from writing usually but do not always occur, so an important goal is to mediators and moderators of what works for whom, and why. Note, although Pennebaker’s research began in the U.S., some has occurred in other countries, including Scotland (Duncan et al. 2007), Spain, (Fernández and Páez 2008), The Netherlands (Stroebe et al. 2002), Italy (Solano et al. 2007), and Australia (Frayne and Wade 2006). Kim (2008) asked 89 bilingual Korean-American and SpanishAmerican students (66 women) to write in one language, switch languages, and or complete a non-writing task. Writing groups reported better adjustment than controls, and switching languages was best of all. Evidence is tentative, then, that writing about trauma helps people across countries, languages, and ethnicities. Composing a narrative may help people deal with trauma (Smyth and Pennebaker 2008). Different cultural groups may react differently, though, so cross-cultural generalization seems premature. One must fully understand the culture to understand data from that culture. Evidence of Gender-Related Differences in Writing Benefits Possible gender differences in writing benefits are surprisingly understudied. A meta-analysis of 13 randomized, controlled trials of writing paradigm studies reported an overall medium (d=.47, Cohen 1992) treatment effect (Smyth 1998). Smyth did not directly test gender differences in benefits, but projects involving relatively more men had larger effects than those with relatively more women, indirect evidence of gender differences benefitting men. A larger, newer meta-analysis (Frattaroli 2006) of 146 studies involving together over 10,000 participants (about two-thirds women) yielded an overall small treatment effect (d = .15), and the large pool enhances confidence in findings. Frattaroli also did not directly test gender differences, but projects involving more men had about the same effect as those involving more women. Meads and Nouwen (2005) analyzed 61 randomized experimental writing studies with a variety of outcomes, and Harris (2006) examined 30 writing studies that included a measure of health care use, but neither reported their gender distribution. Writing about difficult experiences often helped in a meaningful way more than writing about innocuous topics, but an original indirect gender effect disappeared in newer research, and some meta-analyses did not examine gender. One initial research recommendation, therefore, is that writing researchers report means, standard deviations, and effect sizes for women and men. Researchers should directly test for differences between people of different genders and cultures, and for gender by culture interactions

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to identify what works for whom. Small cell sizes can weaken these tests, especially if the sample is unbalances in gender, but this information would address issues of who benefits from trauma writing under what circumstances. If some people benefit more than others from writing, reasons may stem from self-concept (i.e., internalized image of self), social role (i.e., face-to-face relationships, institutional structures, cultural norms), or socialization experiences acquired developmentally in the interaction of these. Gender schema theory (Bem 1984), gender social role theory (Eagly 1987), and gender socialization theory (Burn 1996), suggest gender-sensitive research strategies and explanatory hypotheses in addition to simply analyzing possible gender differences that might provide important insights into the processes underlying the effects found in experimental disclosure research.

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Gender schemas consist of all the information the individual learned about gender (Burn 1996). Schemas guide information processing by influencing attention, because people more easily encode information that fits their existing beliefs (Burn 1996). Strong gender schemas cause people to insist on organizing information by traditional gender stereotypes, making it hard to use dissonant information. In U.S. culture, prevailing feminine stereotypes among 1970s college students included cheerful, gentle, soft-spoken, and sensitive to others; masculine stereotypes included aggressive, self-sufficient, dominant, and independent (Bem 1974). Restrictive gender schemas require gender-typed individuals to act in accord with gender stereotypes and avoid behavior stereotypically associated with the other gender (Bem et al. 1976). Gender Schema Theory and Expressive Writing

Gender Schema Theory Gender schema theory (Bem 1984) proposes that gender typing derives largely from gender-schematic processing, which is the child’s generalized readiness to encode and organize information, including self information, according to culturally defined masculinity and femininity. Due to gender-differentiated community practices, the child invariably learns to invoke society’s definitions of female and male characteristics to assimilate new information, and encodes and organizes information in terms of an evolving gender schema. Schematic information processing entails readiness to sort information into categories based on particular dimensions, despite other equally valid dimensions. People differ in salience of their gender schemas relative to other schemas, thus in readiness to organize perceptions and responses along gender-relevant lines. Gender schema theory views perception as a construction of incoming information interacting with preexisting schema to determine individual perception. From this perspective, women and men behave differently on average because, individually, they perceive, evaluate, and regulate theirs and others’ behavior by internal gender schemas that reflect cultural definitions of gender appropriateness, with some individual variation. Gender schema theory proposes that people come to match the template their culture defines as gender appropriate partly because they learn to sort information, evaluate their personal adequacy, and regulate their behavior, especially in gender-salient situations, based on gender more often and more strongly than on other available dimensions such as situational problem-solving needs. Dividing the world into feminine and masculine categories, not the content of the categories, is central. Indeed, Twenge (1999) identified gender-related attributes in seven content areas, and found that these attributes clustered into different dimensions for college women and men.

One consequence of gender-typed schemas may be constrained processing of emotional information, such as avoiding trauma reminders. For masculine schema individuals, acknowledging traumas or emotional distress might create cognitive dissonance with masculinity. The fear and helplessness often associated with trauma might be especially dissonant with their schemas, likely intensifying avoidance. Consistent with this theory, compared to writers with feminine gender schemas, writers with masculine gender schemas could benefit more because they initially overlooked emotional information about stereotypically forbidden feelings such as fear, and are therefore better positioned to use the writing process to make previously unmade sense of the trauma. Research on dependency provides an empirically supported example of subtle but consistently gendered schematic processing related to gendered social desirability biases inherent to structured self-reports. On self-report tests, masculine gender-typed schemas limit how much respondents acknowledge dependent traits, attitudes and behaviors (Bornstein et al. 1996). In contrast, less structured, indirect, or implicit measures tap unconscious traits and motivations that may not be encoded in language, and are not highly correlated with structured self-report dependency measures (Bornstein 1995; Bornstein et al. 1996). On self-report tests, women report more dependency than men, but women and men are about the same on Rorschach Oral Dependency (Bornstein 1995), which is not affected by the differential social undesirability of admitting dependency. Pennebaker’s writing task is unstructured, so may differentially help those with masculine schemas accept the dependency aspects of many traumas. Those with less masculine or more feminine gender schemas may be more likely to notice trauma-related emotions in the first place, leaving less unmade sense for

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the writing. Feminine sex-typed individuals may have difficulty with emotions that are inconsistent with traditional femininity, such as anger. For them, writing about anger experiences might lead to greater benefits than writing about fear and helplessness experiences. Anger experiences are less likely to be considered traumatic, however, so are less likely to emerge spontaneously under trauma instructions. In recent decades, women have become less gender-schematic (more androgynous and less gendersalient), whereas men’s gender schemas remain restrictive with regard to feminine gender-typed behaviors, especially emotional experience and expression (Twenge 1999). Therefore, according to gender schema theory, masculine gender-typed men would have more restrictive schemas prior to expressive writing, and thus benefit more. Gender schema theory is conceptually linked to cognitive-processing theory, which postulates that making sense of an event, gaining insight about a trauma, and organizing and integrating an upsetting experience into selfschema are mechanisms that make expressive writing helpful. Gender schema theory and cognitive-processing theory focus on cognitive responses to trauma, and posit that Pennebaker’s writing paradigm works by encouraging cognitive processing of avoided feelings, such as those associated with traumas that threatened gender schemas, regardless of gender-typing of the schemas. Some writing paradigm research supports both cognitive processing and gender schema theories. When researchers asked participants who had reported benefitting from expressive writing to explain why they thought it helped, most thought help accrued because writing allowed them to gain insight into what happened to them (Pennebaker et al. 1990). This finding implies processing of previously unprocessed information, regardless of whether the processing failure was inherent in the trauma or a secondary effect of cognitive dissonance with a masculine gender schema. Further, in an analysis of writings from previous studies, participants who benefited most increased the causation (because, cause, effect, etc.) and insight words (consider, know, etc.) in their writing sessions more than did participants who benefitted less (Pennebaker 1993). Gender Schema Theory Research Recommendations One general finding in gender research is that biological sex is a marker variable for many common correlates. If and when gender differences occur, the causal mechanism may not be biological sex, but instead one or more social or psychological correlates such as gender schema that might mediate or moderate effects otherwise misattributed to biological sex. A first research recommendation, therefore, is to add gender schema measures such as Bem’s Sex Role Inventory (1974) or the Personal Attributes Questionnaire

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(Spence et al. 1975) to the research-specific variables. As independent variables, biological sex and gender schema could be compared to see which explained the most variance in outcome variables, regardless of experimental condition. A second research recommendation would be to measure gender schemas at pre-, post-, and follow-uptesting. Over time, if writing helps individuals acknowledge experiences and emotions inconsistent with restrictive gender schemas, those schemas may change. In this way, the research paradigm might assist traditionally masculine or feminine gender-typed individuals revise some of the gender schemas that made the event traumatic in the first place. As dependent variables, Pennebaker’s pre-, post-, and follow-up-test design would enable researchers to ascertain whether changes in gender schemas occur over time differently between groups, and whether changes in gender schemas parallel changes in other outcomes. A third research recommendation arising from gender schema theory would be to use implicit rather than selfreport measures of those constructs for which self-report measures show gender-differentiated social desirability response biases. For dependency, the Rorschach Oral Dependency measure (ROD; Masling et al. 1967) can be administered individually or in a group. It asks participants for two or three answers to each Rorschach card, scoring each for oral dependency. ROD scores could relate to degree of benefit from participating in the research, and would provide information different from that available from self-report measures of dependency. A fourth research recommendation arising from gender schema theory would be to examine whether traditionally masculine individuals typically benefit more than traditionally feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated individuals. The research question would be “Do gender schemas moderate the writing benefits?” If so, then Pennebaker’s research paradigm may be particularly appropriate for those with traditionally masculine gender schemas (especially men) because writing about trauma (a) requires attention to previously avoided emotional information, both traumarelated and gender-schema dissonant, and (b) may reduce cognitive dissonance, allowing them to control the process of integrating this information into their gender and selfschemas. Thus, writing may provide them with an opportunity to develop a different, less threatening way of viewing the trauma or themselves. A fifth research recommendation from gender schema theory is to examine writings for gender schema relevance. Such representations might be too semantically complex to for the computerized programs typically used in Pennebaker’s paradigm, but could be content analyzed (Boyatzis 1998). Representations of the gendered self-schema in the trauma context would include gender experience during the trauma (e.g., “feeling less of a real man/woman”), and

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schema-inconsistent emotions. An example would be sexual humiliation aspects of gender schemas, such as a man’s impotence, or a woman or man’s involuntary orgasm during rape. If those with traditionally masculine gender schemas benefitted more than others, then an implication would be that instructions following such traumas encourage writers to examine their ideas about gender. A goal might be to help these individuals move toward gender transcendence, that is, beyond cultural gender norms to the point that they can adopt stereotypically feminine attitudes and behavior in situations that require these attributes. Summary Gender schema theory offers some potential research strategies that address the possibility of gender schema involvement in differential benefits from writing. This theory highlights the importance of gender schemas as sources of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral restriction, so that gender-typed individuals avoid thoughts, feelings, and behaviors dissonant with their schemas. The active ingredient in writing is presumably breaking down avoidance and inducing cognitive processing and integration of dissonant information. Thus, gender schema theory suggests analyzing writing as related to participants’ own gender schemas (better predictors of outcomes than biological sex); research design characteristics such as including gender schemas as repeated measures dependent variables; differential benefits related to masculine gender-typing; gendered social desirability biases of self-report measures for gender-related constructs such as dependency, using implicit measures instead; and genderrelated writing content, such as gender schemas and gender relevance of the trauma. Social Role Theory Social role theory posits that personality and ability differences stem from roles women and men play in society (Eagly 1987). Contemporaneous influences arising from adult social roles relate more directly to gender differences in adult social behavior than prior socialization or biology. Social roles and the adult learning that takes place in these roles (Atkinson and Huston 1984) proximally predict adult gender differences, although occupancy and behavior in these roles may be linked to distal factors such as childhood socialization, biological predispositions, and social structure. Members of social role groups experience common situational opportunities and constraints because they tend to have similar social positions within organizations and other structures such as families. Although traditionally masculine social roles correlate with biological sex, gender role theory points to role norms as functionally more influential than biological sex.

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Gender roles are culturally shared expectations about appropriate qualities and behaviors that apply to people because of their socially identified gender (Eagly 1987). Descriptive norms are based on typical behaviors, and injunctive norms prescribe what people should do. So, women’s roles are typically communal, focusing on cooperation, solidarity, openness, caring, intimacy, and connection; and, men’s roles are typically agentic, focusing on mastery and self assertion, protection, promotion, and expansion (Bakan 1966). These expectations are typically consistent with those of occupations and other roles numerically dominated by one gender. Eagly’s role congruity theory explains prejudice against women leaders as resulting from incongruity between feminine gender role and agentic demands of the leader role (Eagly and Karau 2002). Social Role Theory and Expressive Writing Conformity to gender roles may explain individual differences observed in Pennebaker’s writing paradigm. These explanations differ from gender schema explanations by being connected to social structure and role norms, and especially to easily observable behavior. In contrast, schemas are internal representations. Although gender schemas and social roles typically co-vary, gender schemas violations more often produce guilt and inadequacy feelings, whereas role norms violations more often produce vulnerability to public shaming and humiliation. Injunctive role norms for occupational and family roles populated primarily by men include agentic traits (aggressive, dominant, independent, and self-sufficient; Eagly and Karau 2002). The norm mandates that masculine individuals show no emotional weakness and take care of their problems themselves. Prohibiting emotional expression may lead them to seek and receive less emotional support and have fewer intimate relationships than those with feminine social roles (Burn 1996). In one study, for women in masculine employment roles, life stress (especially jobrelated stress) correlated with physical illness but not depression; for homemakers, life stress (especially family stress) correlated with depression but not illness (Stewart and Salt 1981). Avoiding expressing tender emotions decreases the opportunity for those with masculine social roles to give and receive emotion-focused support, lack of which in turn may make them vulnerable in situations involving uncontrollable stress, because in these situations people tend need emotion-focused coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984; Thoits 1991). If individuals in stigmatized social roles are discouraged from support-seeking about stressful topics related to their social roles, they may chronically inhibit their expression of associated emotions, and expressive writing might relieve both psychological and physical symptoms, as found by Swanbon et al. (2008) in a sample of gay men.

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The restricted emotional expression typical of masculine social roles is linked to depression, anxiety (Cournoyer and Mahalik 1995), loneliness, and difficulty separating (Blazina et al. 2007). According to social role theory, those with masculine social roles may particularly benefit from writing about trauma because putting feelings into words is new for them, and this new learning enables both symptom relief and behavior change. Their masculine social roles mean that they are expected to express few emotions (Jakupcak et al. 2003). In contrast, those with feminine social roles, being more likely to express emotion and disclose traumas in everyday life, have better support networks, less vulnerability, and less new learning from writing. To the extent that masculine individuals can use writing to formulate and disclose information about their trauma, they can begin to imagine disclosing the trauma, a form of rehearsal. This preliminary practice, coupled with new verbalization skills, might enable them to begin disclosing their trauma. Masculine gender roles relate to less help-seeking. Compared to women, men seek help less often for various problems including cocaine use (McKay et al. 1996), depression (Padesky and Hammen 1981), and alcohol abuse (Thom 1986). Gender-role conflict (O’Neil et al. 1986) and gender-role stress (Eisler et al. 1988) refer to consequences of masculine roles that affect willingness and ability to seek help. Gender role conflict is a state in which socialized gender roles negatively impact the person or others; it occurs when rigid, sexist, or restrictive gender roles lead to personal restriction, devaluation, or violation of others or self (O’Neil et al. 1986). Gender-role stress is appraising situations as stressful in a gender-determined manner (Eisler et al. 1988). Seeking professional help, especially for mental health problems, is at odds with masculinity scripts (Mahalik et al. 2003). For those with masculine social roles, asking for help may call up a socially undesirable specter of dependency not present for those with feminine social roles (Bornstein 1995). Thus, social role theory and research suggest that individuals differ in how much listen to and endorse particular masculinity messages, many of which lessen the possibility of seeking help. An aspect of Pennebaker’s writing paradigm research that might be relevant to social role theory is privacy. Privacy concerns are one cluster of issues that are barriers to help-seeking for men (Mansfield et al. 2005). Pennebaker’s writing paradigm may help individuals with masculine roles relatively more than individuals with feminine roles to the extent that the writing is private, so provides them with a chance to transcend their traditionally masculine social roles because no one is watching. Frattaroli’s (2006) meta-analysis addresses privacy in finding higher effect sizes when participants wrote privately,

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about previously undisclosed topics, and received directed questions or specific examples of what to write (which might encourage disclosures inconsistent with traditional masculine roles) and guarantees that their writing would not be read. Privacy aspects of the design may enable individuals with masculine social roles to write about emotional issues in a context free of observers who might act as social role enforcing critics. Thus, directed writing might relieve pressure to conform to their own understanding of prevailing masculine role norms in public settings. Social Role Theory Research Recommendations One research recommendation from social role theory, therefore, would be for Pennebaker writing research to add measures of gendered social roles, such as the Interpersonal Disposition Inventory (Berzins et al. 1978), or the Occupations, Activities, and Traits Measure (Liben and Bigler 2002). Like gender schemas, gendered social roles often covary with biological sex, and should be compared with biological sex as a possible explanation of sex differences. Gendered social roles might be the causal mechanism mediating effects misattributed to sex; or these effects might be moderated by gender roles and not generalize to individuals in differently gendered situations. To the extent that gendered social roles shape the kinds of stressors that people encounter, they may imply differential content of traumatic experiences as well. A second research recommendation would be to examine whether traditionally masculine social role moderates benefits from participating in writing paradigm research. That is, do participants with more masculine social role preferences benefit more than do those with less masculine role preferences? A third research recommendation from social role theory concerns outcome variables. Men are notorious under-users of physical and psychological health care; they neglect regular checkups and postpone problem-related appointments (Tudiver and Talbot 1999). However, for those with traditionally masculine social roles, one relatively roleappropriate way of obtaining social support would be to see a physician, which would not require disclosure of problems in living. Thus, social role theory would suggest that researchers examine the intersection of social role and physician visits to see if those with traditionally masculine social roles visit physicians less after writing. This recommendation is consistent with the finding that undergraduates with difficulties describing feelings (88 in all, 62 women) had fewer health visits after expressive writing than after neutral writing (Baikie 2008). Further, a metaanalysis of 30 writing studies that measured health care use that indicated that, in 14 samples involving 1,520 healthy people (60.5% women), writing about trauma relative to writing about a neutral topic reduced health care use such

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as physician visits (Harris 2006). Harris reported gender distributions of these studies, but did not analyze health care utilization by gender or social role. Social role theory would characterize Pennebaker’s writing paradigm and physician visits as a disclosure experiences that might facilitate help-seeking. Also, time may make a difference. Initially, after writing, traditionally masculine individuals might be more willing to seek help than before participating. If so, this shift theoretically would most likely take the form of seeing a physician, which might give the appearance of worsened physical symptoms. After continued participation, however, traditionally masculine individuals might be more able to obtain social support via other informal mechanisms, such as talking to friends and family members. If so, then they would need fewer physician visits compared to when they began the project. Thus, writing might produce inconsistent effects on different measures of physical health at different points, with an initial increase followed by a later decrease. A fourth research recommendation from social role theory would be for meta-analyses of Pennebaker’s experimental writing research to classify the writing setting on a continuum of privacy versus public scrutiny. Private writing would be less subject to the effect of social role than public writing. One end of the continuum would be the most private situation, with participants writing in a private laboratory and being guaranteed that no one would read what they wrote. For example, Frayne and Wade (2006) told their 98 women college student participants that their writing tasks would not be collected and that they would have the opportunity to shred their writing following each session. Next on the continuum would be situations in which one of these conditions applies, such as writing at home, where the possibilities of interruption and privacy violations exist. The next point might be writing in a classroom with others who might glimpse what they wrote. Finally, the least private situation would be for the researcher to state that someone would read the writing. This type of linear classification would fit a moderator analysis, so researchers could ascertain whether the degree of writing privacy was associated with benefit differentially for those with masculine social roles compared to others. If degree of privacy made a difference in benefits for relatively more masculine individuals, it could be that they benefit more because the paradigm allows for gender role transcendence by reducing both self-scrutiny and public exposure. A fifth research recommendation from social role theory would be to ask respondents how important it is that their writing is private, and to relate this variable to masculine role preference. In some writing studies, participants are told that no one will read their writing (Ames et al. 2007); in others, participants are told that someone will read it within 24 h and call them if they indicate any tendency to

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harm themselves or others (Kovac and Range 2002). As per this recommendation, participants could rate whether they mind disclosing their writing, and answer open-ended questions about whether and why it mattered to them. Their answers could be coded and analyzed for gender related concerns and related to other benefits. A sixth research recommendation social role theory would be to examine whether social role differences exist in whether the trauma was previously disclosed. Research findings are mixed on finding that writing about an undisclosed topic benefitted more (Páez et al. 1999, Study 1), writing about a disclosed topic benefitted more (Páez et al. 1999, Study 2), or previous disclosure made no difference (Greenberg and Stone 1992). Other research indicated both real and imaginary trauma-writers had fewer illness-related physician visits than controls (Greenberg et al. 1996). These studies differ in their proportions of women (66% and 65%, Páez et al. 1999; 60%, Greenberg and Stone 1992; 100%, Greenberg et al. 1996), but more pertinently, participants may differ in gender roles, a difference that might explain inconsistencies. If those in traditionally masculine social roles are less likely in general to disclose trauma, but do so when following instructions, then social role might interact with previous disclosure so that they benefit in ways that those in traditionally feminine social roles have already. Summary Social role theory characterizes Pennebaker’s experimental writing paradigm as a potentially gender role norm-violating disclosure experience for participants with masculine social roles, one in which privacy is important, and one in which participation may facilitate eventual open communication with others. Social role theory suggests further analyses of writing paradigm research including adding measures of gendered social roles as better predictors of benefits than biological sex; testing whether participants’ gendered social roles moderates benefits; asking whether participation increases or diminishes health care utilization initially and over time for those with masculine social roles; assessing whether privacy of disclosure makes a difference in benefits; asking if privacy matters more to masculine gender role participants than others; and, examining whether those with more masculine roles are less likely to have disclosed their traumatic experiences previously and whether social role intersects with previous disclosure to impact benefits. Gender Socialization Theory Gender socialization theory, which can be viewed as the developmental intersection of gender schemas and gender roles beginning in childhood, posits that gender differences

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arise not so much from sex-linked chromosomes or hormones as from the socio-cultural norms that society conveys to children by instruction (Tenenbaum and Leaper 2002), interaction processes (Aries 1996; Maccoby 1990), and adult role models (Burn 1996). Socialization experiences accrue over a lifetime and communicate that different behavior, attitudes, abilities, and interests are appropriate and important, depending upon gender (Burn). These personal characteristics may be less obviously genderrelated and less conscious than gender schemas, and less readily rewarded or punished in social settings than overt role norm violations. Rather, they accumulate gradually as consistent patterns that unify subjective experiences and covary with gender. Further, parents encourage children’s gender-typed activities (Lytton and Romney 1991), although cultures differ in both content and extremity of differences. For example, Finnish men expect more societal acceptance for their boys’ cross-gendered behavior than do women (Sandnabba and Ahlberg 1999). How people define gender characteristics is greatly influenced by cultural norms that specify what women and men should do and by social information that tells people how women and men are different. Gender socialization is the process by which women and men learn that different feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are appropriate depending on gender. Differential reinforcement and differential modeling are two mechanisms by which gender socialization occurs (Burn 1996). Differential reinforcement means that reinforcement occurs sometimes, but not for the same behavior at other times. Crying might be differentially reinforced when A was patted on the back (reinforcement) when crying at the movie, but ignored when crying at work. Differential modeling means that people see and imitate differential reinforcement. Thus, B might see this pattern, so learn by observing what happened to A. Because socialization is not verbally mediated, this information may be less accessible to self-report than other verballybased learning. Gender socialization leads to different kinds of pressure to conform to gender roles. One kind of pressure, normative, results from conformity to societal or group expectations to avoid social rejection and plays a role in adherence to gender roles. Normative pressure leads women to fear being considered aggressive if they act assertively, and men to fear being considered soft if they act in a nurturing way, whether or not they conceptualize these activities as explicitly gender-related. Another kind of pressure, informational, results from heavy reliance on social information to increase knowledge of self and the world (Burn 1996) and leads people to believe the information they receive that gender differences are large, pervasive, and important (Zuriff 2006), whether or not they believe that they themselves fit a gender-typed pattern.

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Gender Socialization Theory and Expressive Writing Through gender socialization, women are pushed toward nurturing attitudes and emotional abilities to care about people, express emotions, and seek social support; in contrast, men are pushed to develop action skills such as assertiveness, independence, self-reliance, risk-taking, emotional stoicism, and avoiding femininity or revealing vulnerability (Kilmartin 1994). Frattaroli (2006) found that experimental writing helped psychological health outcomes related to emotions (depression, positive functioning) more than cognitions (schemas, body image disorder). Thus, people whose socialization discourages expressing and understanding emotions may benefit more from writing than do those with better socialization for emotion management. Gender schema theory focuses on avoidance of cognitive processing of emotion-related information, social role theory attends to the anticipated social consequences of emotional disclosures, and socialization theory indicates that there are gender differences in the socialization of emotion processing skills in the first place. Socialization theory’s implication that feminine more than masculine socialization facilitates handling emotions ties into functionalist theories of emotion (Stanton et al. 2000b), which assert that emotions are fundamentally adaptive because they call attention to relevant goals and concerns, prompt goal-directed action, and help communication. Supporting this theory, women completing breast cancer treatment who coped by emotional expression had increased vigor and self-perceived health, and decreased distress and medical appointments for cancer over three months, controlling for age and initial health (Stanton et al. 2000a). Also, a pre-existing habit of emotional approach coping was associated with women’s lower depression over time, especially in interpersonal situations, but not men’s; however, in low control situations, gender differences in these associations were greater, with emotional approach coping women becoming less but men becoming more depressed (Stanton et al. 1994). Therefore, those with masculine more than feminine socialization may benefit from writing because this paradigm induces them to process emotions in ways they ordinarily would not. Given that Stanton et al.’s (1994) men became more depressed over time if they used more emotional approach coping, it is important to note their finding that men coped this way less than women did, and men expressed more hostility at both times. Careful study of the content of the emotions involved is needed, as men’s lower scores on emotional approach coping might reflect restraint of anger. If they remain engaged over the course of the research, writers may acquire alternative emotion processing skills. So, experimental writing could help those

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with masculine socialization catch up to those with feminine socialization in efficacy of their emotional processing. Pennebaker’s experimental writing paradigm can be understood in the context of self-regulation theory (Greenberg et al. 1996), which postulates that experimental disclosure can be a mastery experience because disclosure enhances affective regulation. In that disclosure allows people to observe themselves expressing and controlling their emotions, it may give new or stronger self-efficacy for emotional regulation. Participants may feel that their trauma, stress, or challenges are more controllable, which should reduce negative affect and lead to other improvements. For example, making low control situations seem more controllable might reduce gender differences in emotional approach coping. Thus, experimental disclosure tasks may work by allowing participants to explore sources of emotion, make sense of the event, clarify goals, and rectify self-regulation. In that it can enhance feelings of being in control of oneself and of the trauma, the research paradigm would tie into a traditional masculine socialization demand. Different gender socialization includes different preferred coping styles. People typically use the style that best fits their socialized gender role, and get the most social support from the coping strategies that fit their socialized gender role. This tendency may lead to a proficient use that makes traditional gender-related coping styles more adaptive than other coping styles (González-Morales et al. 2006). Thus, experimental writing may help relieve those with masculine socialization of the emotional stoicism that interferes with their obtaining the social support that all need. Experimental disclosure in Pennebaker’s research paradigm may benefit those with masculine more than those with feminine socialization because writing resembles therapy but lacks the stigma associated with help-seeking. In a typical study, participants meet with an experimenter who appreciates them, describes the project carefully, and emphasizes the seriousness of the task and the fact that it will take time on several different days. Then, they consent, and some write privately about difficult topics. Then, they have the option, if they are upset or concerned for any reason, to talk to someone before they leave. These characteristics are similar to therapy but do not carry the same connotations of asking for help. An experimental disclosure writing paradigm, therefore, may allow individuals with masculine socialization to avail themselves of some of the benefits of therapy, benefits that they would not ordinarily accrue. Socialization Theory Research Recommendations Gender socialization defines certain patterns of emotion as characteristic of each gender, and differentiates emotion management skills that women and men should acquire and

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exercise. Therefore, the first research recommendation from socialization theory involves including a measure of emotional approach coping in expressive writing studies, with those lower on this measure expected to benefit most. A related second research recommendation would be to assess whether tailoring the writing instructions to emphasize mastery and control maximizes benefits for individuals with masculine customary coping styles. The physical consequences of the emotional stoicism more characteristic of individuals with more masculine and little feminine socialization leads to the third research recommendation from socialization theory, which is to examine socialization within the context of reported physical problems by including a measure of alexithymia. Literally without words for emotions, alexithymia includes difficulty identifying feelings and distinguishing them from somatic sensations; difficulty describing feelings to others; constricted imaginal processes; and concrete, externally oriented thinking (for a review see Lumley et al. 2007). Research could include measures of alexithymia along with emotional approach coping at both pretest and follow-up, with alexithymia decreases and emotional approach increases expected to correlate with most benefit. A fourth research recommendation, which would test gender socialization theory, is to ask whether writers imagined someone reading their disclosure, and if so, who the reader was and what was the reaction, including whether the reader soothed or helped them. Those with a supportive, helpful reader may benefit more than those with an unsupportive, unhelpful, or critical imagined reader. Some writers might spontaneously imagine a helpful reader even when told that no one would read their writing, and they might be more likely than others to disclose private, personal thoughts in a way similar to therapy. Masculinesocialized writers who imagine a helpful reader benefitting more than those who do not would support gender socialization theory. A fifth research recommendation would be to test whether instructions emphasizing a helpful, comforting, or supportive imagined reader maximize benefit for those with masculine socialization. Summary To the extent that gender socialization experiences theory are not obviously gender-labeled, or even verbally mediated, their associations with gender may be overlooked. Gender socialization theory suggests that writing paradigms include measures of emotional approach coping, test whether instructions that emphasize mastery and control are particularly helpful for individuals with masculine socialization, examine alexithymia and emotion processing deficits in association with writing benefits, assess the imagined reader and her or his helpfulness.

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Convergences Gender schema theory, social role theory, and socialization theory converge in suggesting some research strategies in writing paradigm studies, despite their distinct emphases on cognitive, social, and developmental processes, respectively. The first strategy is a methodological precondition for applying the theories, and specifies the data needed for the strongest and most central tests of these theories. The remaining strategies reflect parallels among the theories leading to similar recommendations for mediating, moderating, or contextual variables that might yield important findings. That is, those who are gender schematic, gender role typed, or traditionally gender socialized might respond differently to writing than do those who are not. The three theories share a statistical model that (a) presumes gender differences, which might appear as differences between women and men or as differences in association between predictor and outcome for women and for men (moderator effects), and (b) accounts for observed gender differences by the artifactual association of gender with other variables more closely related to the behavior of interest, in this case differential benefits from trauma writing. The first recommendation parallels the initial research recommendation that experimenters report means and standard deviations for the women and men in their samples, research information that is a precondition for application of all three theories. If experiments report gender means and standard deviations, then the research recommendation from all three theories is that future metaanalyses report the collective gender composition of all studies that meet inclusion criteria, test across studies for gender differences in benefit means and associations, assess gender by culture interactions, and examine whether gender moderates beneficial aspects of disclosure, and, if so, which aspects. Meta-analyses would not be as limited by small sample size and unequal numbers of women and men as individual Pennebaker paradigm experiments. Two meta-analyses of Pennebaker’s research design studies included an indirect analysis by gender. Smyth (1998) found a gender difference; Frattaroli (2006) did not. However, despite finding no gender effect, Frattaroli (2006) recommended that future writing paradigm research continue to examine the interaction between gender and treatment, given that most studies include both women and men, and that this analysis can be performed easily. All three theories stress the importance of establishing the generalizability of research results across gender lines, although they differ in their foci regarding the source of differences that may be found. A second research recommendation from all three theories is to examine whether gender is a marker variable for something else that makes a functional difference in

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responses to experimental writing, and to measure that something else as indicated by each theory. All three theories assert that identified gender constitutes such a marker, or proxy, variable (see Jenkins 2010), although they differ in emphasizing the functional variables of gender schemas, gender roles, and gender socialization, respectively, each of which may mediate the effects of gender on outcomes or moderate the effects of writing on outcomes. They are unlikely to be redundant, as they are independent in children (Liben and Bigler 2002; Spence and Hall 1996) and college students (Twenge 1999). Mediator and moderator analyses (Barron and Kenny 1986) are complementary ways of identifying and isolating confounded variables that might lead researchers to misattribute to women and men functional differences that are actually due to a confounded variable statistically related to gender. For example, if men benefit more from expressive writing than women, this difference may occur because men tend to have more characteristics that predict response to expressive writing such as masculine schemas, traditionally agentic social roles, or socialization to avoid processing emotion. If women who have more of these characteristics benefit more than other women do, and men lacking these characteristics benefit less than other men do, then these characteristics mediate the apparent effect of gender on benefits in a path analysis model (Barron & Kenny). Moderator effects, in contrast, may occur even when the genders do not differ in means. Gender schema, gender role, and gender socialization function as moderators if individuals who score high show a different association between predictor and outcome from those who score low. Meta-analyses would enable researchers to examine moderators, including gender schema, gender role, and gender socialization. A third research recommendation relevant to all three theories is to examine changes in disclosures over time. Each theory indicates a specific form of constriction related to rigid gender-based constraints that discourage emotional disclosure. Herein we posit that benefits from expressive writing might include relaxation of those constraints. Pennebaker’s experimental design typically includes follow-up assessment, and the researchers typically measure changes in the dependent variables from pre- to post- to follow-up-testing. Additional questions to ask would include whether, by follow-up, writers who benefitted most showed changes relevant to each theory. For example, gender schema theory posits less restricted self-schemas, social role theory posits more flexible gender roles, and socialization theory posits more awareness of how their gender socialization influences their behavior along gender lines. A fourth research recommendation involving all three theories calls for closer inspection of the gender-relevance

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of the trauma. The trauma may be an important moderator variable because each theory addresses an aspect of gender that defines a psychological vulnerability to gender-specific traumatic experiences. Participant writers who experienced gender-unrelated traumas may be less likely to show gender-related improvements after expressive writing. In some research, participants choose the trauma about which they write (Guastella and Dadds 2006). In other research, they are told what trauma to write about (“their very deepest thoughts and feelings related to smoking or stopping smoking and how smoking relates to problems or conflicts in their life,” Ames et al. 2007, p. 187), one that is related to the study’s dependent variables. Genderrelevance of the trauma could influence the kinds of benefits that accrue. For example, whether the trauma is heroic (consistent with gender tradition) or shaming might make a difference, with those writing about shaming traumas more likely to improve in gender schemas. Alternatively, whether the trauma is impersonal or interpersonal might make a difference, with those writing about gender-related interpersonal traumas more likely to improve in gender roles. Finally, whether the trauma is genderstigmatizing or non-stigmatizing might make a difference, with those writing about stigmatizing traumas more likely to improve in gender socialization. Inasmuch as Pennebaker’s experimental writing paradigm involves writing about a trauma, gender differences in rate and type of exposure to various traumas may have an as yet under-examined impact. In the National Comorbidity Survey, for instance, 60.7% of men and 51.2% of women reported at least one traumatic event in their lives (Kessler et al. 1995). Men more than women populate high-risk occupations involving frequent encounters with death and injury or risk to self, such as first responders (Alexander and Klein 2001). However, society typically considers these occupations as heroic, though subsequent trauma reactions are not (Mitchell and Everly 2000). Women were more likely than men to experience rape and sexual abuse (Kessler et al. 1995). Among middle-class adults over age 75, 5.4% of men but 12.7% of women reported sexual assault (Stein and Barrett-Connor 2000). Rape and sexual abuse are more severely threatening in terms of potential death or injury than are many other traumas, and these experiences are stigmatizing to the victim, being generally regarded as shameful, not heroic (Feiring et al. 2009). The specific gender-related meaning of the event for the individual should be assessed as described for gender schema theory, and it may have social role and socialization implications as well. Some Pennebaker-paradigm research findings imply that writing about sexual traumas may be less helpful overall than writing about traumas in general. College students who reported at least moderately upsetting physical or

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sexual abuse who wrote about their past abuse (experimental group 1) or past positive experiences (experimental group 2) were no different in psychological distress than those who wrote about trivial topics (control; Antal and Range 2005). Also, undergraduates and community women who wrote about either past sexual abuse (experimental group) or time management (control) were less depressed and psychologically symptomatic at 12-week follow-up, but the abuse and time management groups were not significantly different (Batten et al. 2002). One interpretation of these results is that the writing paradigm is less effective for sexual than other trauma, but an alternative possibility is that the dependent variables in these studies were too broad, and needed to include a gender schema measure because the potential shame involved might affect gendered aspects of self-schema, a gender role measure because the potential stigma involved might be more strongly felt by either masculine-typed or feminine-typed individuals, or a gender socialization measure because of the potential impact of the trauma on the person’s subjective experience of violating gender-related sociocultural norms. A fifth research recommendation is to examine whether the trauma was sexual, and if so, in what way. Researchers could rate the degree of sexuality involved, and test whether there was more improvement in those who wrote about relatively more sexual traumas. Arguing against this recommendation is Frattaroli’s (2006) meta-analytic finding that disclosing positive events was as beneficial as disclosing negative events, suggesting that valence of the event may be unrelated to benefits. However, many researchers, and Frattaroli’s meta-analysis, did not classify sexual content of the traumas. Corollary and further relevant to all three theories, could be the question of the trauma’s personal meaning to the writer. Meta-analytic researchers could classify sexual traumas into those that negatively impact gender schemas, gender roles, or gender socialization, and then test whether some groups benefit more from writing than others based on whether the event was experienced more cognitively, more socially, or more emotionally. A final, sixth research recommendation is to integrate gender theories bearing on selective information processing into the link between academic research on experimental writing and clinical studies of why and for whom psychological treatments are differentially effective. Exposure theory assumes that repeatedly confronting, describing, and reliving thoughts and feelings about trauma leads to extinction of the thoughts and feelings (Nemeroff et al. 2006). Theoretically, forced reduction of avoidance in this way induces coming to terms with the cognitive dissonance between gender schemas and trauma experiences. Alternatively, disclosing these thoughts and feelings to others

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requires confronting the behavior restrictions described by gender social role theory by changing the social context to support disclosure. Finally, reliving and reprocessing those experiences with the support of a therapist may help people overcome gender-related socialized deficits in emotion processing. Exposure theory is the theoretical basis of PTSD and phobia treatments (Nemeroff), where the goal is to reduce avoidance of the feared stimulus (gender schema theory), enable people to repeatedly confront and describe the trauma (gender social role theory), and, in essence, reexperience and learn to process (socialization theory) thoughts and feelings about the trauma. Typical exposure instructions ask participants to imagine and/or disclose their traumatic event repeatedly over several days. The implication is that repeated exposure will enable these individuals to think differently, behave differently with others, and feel differently about the trauma. Support for exposure theory applied to Pennebaker’s experimental writing paradigm has been mixed, and few studies examined gender-related aspects of the event or its impact. Some research reports no reduction in intrusive and avoidant thoughts in those who write about traumas compared to controls (Deters and Range 2003; Lepore 1997). These findings, which suggest that individuals benefit from writing tasks because of the emotional ramifications rather than the cognitive ramifications of the disclosure, do not support exposure theory.

Table 1 Summary of research recommendations.

However, Klest and Freyd (2007) developed a scoring rubric for organization and coherence of trauma writing. With this rubric, organization significantly predicted fewer physical and mental health symptoms, and marginally less dissociation. Better essay organization related to reduced symptoms at 6-month follow-up, suggesting that narrative coherence plays an important role in the relationship between health and writing. If willingness to participate reflects low avoidance, willingness to write reflects comfort with disclosure, and better essay organization reflects better emotion management of trauma memories, then this finding supports exposure theory. Here, the gendered nature of the trauma combined with the writer’s gender typing or androgyny could make the most difference. If the trauma is gender-related, gender-typed individuals would theoretically experience greatest dissonance and most intense avoidance, and according to all three theories should be at greatest risk for terminating participation unless this dissonance is accurately identified and addressed. Non-gender-typed individuals should be at the least risk, regardless of any gender implications of the trauma. See Table 1 for a summary of recommendations from all three theories. Challenging Problems, Integrative Directions for Solutions These three gender theories sometimes converge on similar recommendations, but at other times complement

Theory

Research Recommendation

Gender Schema

Add gender schema measures. Measure repeatedly. Add implicit measures for variables showing gender biases. Ask if those with traditionally masculine schemas benefit more. Examine writing content for gender schema relevance. Add gendered social role measures. Ask if masculine gender role moderates benefits. Ask if gender role relates to physician visits (PV) or changes in PV over time.

Social Role

Socialization

All

Classify disclosure setting on privacy continuum and relate to gender role. Ask if gender role relates to caring about writing privacy. Ask about social role differences in trauma being previously disclosed. Add measure of emotional approach coping, see if those lower benefit most. Ask whether mastery instructions especially help those with masculine socialization (MS). Add measures of alexithymia; do those with high scores benefit more? Ask about imagined reader (IR) and if helpful IR increases benefits for MS. Report M’s, SDs, effect sizes in all experiments Test for gender differences meta-analytically. Ask if gender is a marker for another variable; does gender moderate benefits. Examine changes over time in theory-specific aspects of gender More closely inspect gender relevance of the trauma; was the trauma sexual? Examine selective information processing relevant to the writing.

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each other toward a more differentiated and integrated solution. One example touched on in different sections above is help-seeking and social support. People may consciously hold gender schemas that encourage seeking support, or reject seeking support as incongruent with their self-schemas. Simultaneously, they may consider seeking support, but reject it from concern for others’ opinions of its gender congruence, consistent with gender role theory. Alternatively, they might not consider support-seeking or might not seek support from particular sources or for particular kinds of problems, due to socialized coping habits. These alternatives may at times or for some people be consistent with one another, but also may conflict. There may be gradations of perceived stigma and avoidance from no help-seeking through help-seeking from medical professionals only to helpseeking for problems in living, and all of these may be safer psychologically in role theory terms than social support from friends and family, which requires not only a willingness to ask but also a different skill set for problem disclosure. A related complex challenge for fitting all three theories together on physical outcome measures is somatization. Following the reasoning about alexithymia (presumed more related to masculine socialization of emotion processing deficits), men should somatize more. However, women somatize more than men do in Israeli (Cwikel et al. 2008), German (Ladwig et al. 2001), and U. S. samples (American Psychiatric Association [APA] 2000). This difference may be because girls begin internalizing negative feelings at a young age, because women more often than men are diagnosed with internalizing disorders such as depression (APA), or because diagnosticians view women’s symptoms differently than the same symptoms in men. Feminine gender-typed schemas that give women permission to experience and express emotions conflict with gender role norms that require women to prioritize attention to other people’s feelings, a factor that might increase somatization. If writing reduces physical tensions that lead to medical complaints, and traditionally feminine individuals tend to somatize their emotions more than others, then feminine socialized individuals might experience reduced physical complaints after writing more so than traditionally masculine or androgynous individuals. Further, men may be underdiagnosed with somatizing disorders because they underutilize health care, and are expected to have (or at least report and seek help for) fewer emotional, tension-related medical complaints. Thus, physical complaints may interact with gender schemas, gender roles, and gender socialization to affect who benefits from the writing paradigm. But this picture is incomplete and calls for further theoretical analysis and research.

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Conclusion Pennebaker’s experimental writing research paradigm may help participants overcome adverse gender schema, social role, or socialization issues that interfere with improving after trauma. So, experimental disclosure could enable writers to transcend traditional understandings of how gender-typed individuals cope with trauma, overcome gender role prohibitions against revealing themselves, conquer difficulties in expressing emotions to others, no longer need traditionally acceptable proxies for social support such as visiting a physician for physical problems, become better able to disclose traumatic experiences to get social support, improve emotion processing, or obtain mild but beneficial therapeutic experiences they would not ordinarily seek. Alternatively, Pennebaker’s paradigm might engage gender schema, social role, or socialization issues in ways that help some participants more than others deal with traumatic events. Thus, experimental disclosure could facilitate a sense of control about the traumatic event, and so tie into masculine gender socialization. Or, experimental writing could help participants recognize that the trauma was not as gender incongruent as they originally believed. The fact that Smyth’s meta-analysis in 1998 examined 13 studies, and Frattaroli’s in 2006, only eight years later, examined 146 studies speaks to an explosion of interest in Pennebaker’s experimental paradigm. This phenomenal growth is not surprising, because the experimental writing paradigm offers a low cost, minimally intrusive intervention that could be helpful to those who experience trauma. To date, this explosion has not been matched by research questions derived from gender schema, social role, or gender socialization theory. The time has come for gender theory-based research and analytic strategies, which could provide important process insights into who benefits and why, and what kinds of traumas may be particularly responsive to experimental writing in particular, or journal writing in general.

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