eprintid: 14134
rev_number: 6
eprint_status: archive
userid: 192
dir: disk0/00/01/41/34
datestamp: 2012-11-27 11:42:22
lastmod: 2022-07-18 01:24:46
status_changed: 2012-11-27 14:05:36
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Paul, Franc
creators_name: Schredl, Michael
title: Male-female ratio in waking-life contacts and dream characters
ispublished: pub
subjects: ddc-300
divisions: i-851200
keywords: dream content; gender difference; continuity hypothesis; social contacts; male/female percent
abstract: One of the well established findings in dream research is the discrepancy between men’s and women’s dream character sex ratio, i.e. men dream more often about men but women show no such difference. Some studies stress the fact of such a ubiquitous difference by showing that for example a person’s relationship status alters these rates. The present study investigated the relationship between the sex ratio of dream characters and waking-life social contact patterns. Sixty-one participants kept a dream diary for two weeks as well as a daytime diary to thoroughly record all waking contacts in terms of duration and number of characters. After the two weeks all participants had to fill out a retrospective questionnaire about their contact patterns in the inquiry period. Both genders spent an equal amount of their waking time with men (female participants 41%, male participants 43%) and generally more time with women. Looking at the dream reports, men reveal more male characters (61%) than women (48%) but this difference barely missed significance (p = 0.0731; d = 0.518). We separated the female participants into singles and non-singles and calculated male ratios for both subgroups respectively to look for factors other than gender that may influence the ratio. Daytime prospective measures reveal that women in a relationship spent twice the time with men (50%) compared to singles (26%). Furthermore, female participants in a relationship dream significantly more about men (54%) than those without a partner (36%). Results suggest that there are other factors than gender per se contributing for the different male ratios in women’s compared to men’s dreams.
date: 2012
date_type: published
id_scheme: ojs
official_url: https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/IJoDR/article/view/9406
ppn_swb: 1446079856
own_urn: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-141344
language: eng
bibsort: PAULFRANCMALEFEMALE2012
full_text_status: none
publication: International Journal of Dream Research
volume: 5
number: 2
pagerange: 119-124
citation:   Paul, Franc ; Schredl, Michael  (2012) Male-female ratio in waking-life contacts and dream characters.  International Journal of Dream Research, 5 (2).  pp. 119-124.