Gender differences in the dreams of canadian adolescents

Abstract

Previous studies using the most recent dream methodology and dream related questionnaires have examined the dreams of adolescents in Europe and the United States. They found that adolescent males have more males in their dreams and adolescent females have more females in their dreams, adolescent males have more total aggression and adolescent girls have a higher befriender percentage than adolescent boys. Adolescent girls have been found to engage in more conversation in dreams than boys and also have more household objects, where male dreams are more aggressive and have more stereotypical masculine objects such as sports equipment and tools. The current study attempts to replicate previous findings on gender differences in adolescent dreams using the more reliable dreams diary method and explore additional features in the dreams of adolescent Canadians. Fifty males and 50 females, ages 12–17, kept a diary of day’s events and dreams for 10 days. One dream per participant was scored by two independent judges, with inter-rater reliability, using the Hall and Van de Castle method of content analysis. All variables were controlled for dream report length by dividing by word count. DreamSAT was used for statistical comparisons and a control was used for family-wise multiple comparisons. Independent samples t -tests revealed that females had significantly more words in their dreams ( t (78) = −3.543, p = .001), and more female ( t (98) = −2.785, p = .006) and family characters ( t (98) = −2.683, p = .009.), whereas males had significantly more strangers ( t (61) = 3.578, p = .001). Males had both more total aggression (t (74) = 2.452, p = .017), and more recreation implement objects ( t (60) = 2.572, p = .013). In addition, a variable in DreamSAT measuring negative tone revealed that males had more negatively toned dreams than females ( t (87) = 2.653, p = .009). These results support previous research on gender differences in the dreams of adolescents and stress the early appearance of aggression in male dreams compared to female dreams. It will be interesting to examine the evolution of these differences in older groups. supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.