Gender and Depression in Psychology

This paper discusses the concept of gender and depression in psychology through six articles. It compares primary research articles and a popular press article to explore the prevalence of depression in different age groups and the role of gender. It also examines the link between depression and somatic symptomatology and analyzes the gender differences in late-life depression. Additionally, it discusses the impact of social media on depression in girls.

Psychology
Psychology
Name
Professor
Course
Date

Psychology
Introduction
The paper discusses the use of six articles which explains the concept of gender and
depression in psychology. The paper compares 6 articles, 5 primary research articles and 1
popular press article.
Summary of the articles
Luppa, M., Sikorski, C., Luck, T., Ehreke, L., Konnopka, A., Wiese, B., Weyerer, S., König,
H.H. and Riedel-Heller, S.G., 2012. Age-and gender-specific prevalence of depression in latest-
life–systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of affective disorders, 136(3), pp.212-221.
The article describes research on gender specific preference on depression. The article is
structured in the form of research including all the concept and procedures of research work. The
aim of the article was to describe the prevalence of depression in lifespan of 60 years and above.
Particularly the article focused on ages and concepts related to gender rates. The results obtained
from the research indicated that more than 13 studies used in the research gave high to moderate
quality results. The research also included the major causes of depression and the most age
affected by the issue of depression (Herbison, Allen, Robinson, Newnham & Pennell, 2017).
Hankin, B. L., Young, J. F., Abela, J. R., Smolen, A., Jenness, J. L., Gulley, L. D., ... &
Oppenheimer, C. W. (2015). Depression from childhood into late adolescence: influence of
gender, development, genetic susceptibility, and peer stress. Journal of abnormal psychology,
124(4), 803.
The article argues that depression is a mental illness that has developmental patterns
starting from childhood stage all the way to adulthood stage in human beings. The aim of the
article was to explain the concept of depression starting from childhood and the factors such as

Psychology
genetic concept, the peer stress and gender on how they induce the concept of depression (Maji,
2018). In addition in order to get the intended information, the research used 12 years old and
30-year-old participants so as to account on depression accounts for adolescent stages all the way
to adulthood. Before embarking on the results, the article started by articulating on how overall
prevalence rates of depression are affected by gender and also the pubertal stages experienced in
human beings. The results obtained indicated that old ages are prone to depression and they have
higher chronic stages as compared to childhood ages.
Silverstein, B., Edwards, T., Gamma, A., Ajdacic-Gross, V., Rossler, W., & Angst, J. (2013).
The role played by depression associated with somatic symptomatology in accounting for the
gender difference in the prevalence of depression. Social psychiatry and psychiatric
epidemiology, 48(2), 257-263.
The main objective of the article was to explain role played by somatic symptomatology
which is associated with depression. In order to explain the concept, the article has emphasized
gender prevalence's on the issue of depression. The article, therefore, tries to explain why
different researcher argues that depression is all accompanied by somatic symptomatology.
Therefore, in order to support the main idea the research was carried out and analyzed on how
somatic depression is induced and then compared with depression that is not induced by the
concept of somatic symptomatology which was clearly indicated as a pure depression during the
study (McLeod, Horwood & Fergusson, 2016).
Forlani, C., Morri, M., Ferrari, B., Dalmonte, E., Menchetti, M., De Ronchi, D., & Atti, A. R.
(2014). Prevalence and gender differences in late-life depression: a population-based study. The
American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 22(4), 370-380.

Psychology
It is a population-based study that tries to explain the concept of gender and depression in
human beings. The topic is based on the research of prevalence and gender in depression. The
main objective of the article is to explain why there are increasing levels of prevalence
depressions in late life. The issue of the aging population combined with the issue of prevalence
depression has affected a lot of people and that's why many researchers have tried to research on
(Nadeau, Balsan & Rochlen, 2016). A cross-sectional study was used to collect research data
which later revealed that there was disparity between men and women when explaining issue of
depression based on gender. Therefore, results indicated that there is a need to ensure there is an
evaluation of specific gender difference
Girgus, J. S., & Yang, K. (2015). Gender and depression. Current Opinion in Psychology, 4, 53-
60.
The article tends to review the recent information that tries to explain line of gender in
depression. Basically, depression affects almost all ages but it depends on the age level. The
research here tries to explain why the different ages are prone to depression as compared to some
ages in human beings. The article, therefore, articulates that females are more prone to
depression as compared to males. The adolescence ages starting from ten years all the way to 55
years old females are always prone to depression (Neitzke, 2016). The article, therefore, tries to
account for reasons or symptoms which fully describes why depression is associated with gender
differences in human beings.

Psychology
The Guardian, Depression in girls linked to higher use of social media. 4th, January, 2019.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/depression-in-girls-linked-to-higher-use-of-
social-media
The popular press article tries to compare how girls are affected by depression as compared to
boys through the use of social media. The article shows that a large number of girls spend their
time using social media as compared to boys in the USA. The increased use of social media
causes depression to girls since they are highly harassed in the online platforms. These findings
were reported by Prof Yvonne Kelly who conducted the research indicating the level of
depression experienced by gender in the USA on 4th, January, 2019. This subjects them to
experience depression from platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and also WhatsApp.
The article shows that the link between depression and the effects of social media is stronger to
girls than to boys. The study indicated girls spend a lot of hours on social media than boys on a
daily basis. This increases the depression to girls. For example, the girls of age 14 years were
categorized as the victims of depression associated with social media (Oliffe, Kelly, Bottorff,
Johnson & Wong, 2017). The number of girls who were depressed was 75% more than those of
boys. Most of the girls had experienced online bullying from different people using the same
online platforms.
Differences between the articles
In the first article that is Luppa et al., (2012) the main issue discussed is all about the
prevalence of depression in the latest life of about 60 years and above. On the second article that
is Hankin et al., (2015), the article argues that depression is a mental illness that has clear

Psychology
developmental patterns starting from childhood stage all the way to adulthood stage in human
beings (Petterson, VanderLaan & Vasey,2017).
The third article that is Silverstein et al., (2013) the main objective of the article was to
explain how depression is associated with somatic symptomatology while in the fourth article
that is Forlani et al., (2014) the main objective of the article is to explain why there are
increasing levels of prevalence depressions in late life (Salk, Hyde & Abramson,2017).
In the fifth article that is Girgus and Yang (2015), the article articulates how females are
more prone to depression as compared males. The adolescence ages starting from ten years all
the way to 55 years old females are always prone to depression while in the public press article
tries to compare level of depression in different gender whereby girls are identified as the only
gender which is prone to depression as revealed on the case of social media.
The research article have unique format that is used for writing a research (starting form
Abstract, introduction, literature review, method ,findings ,discussion and conclusion) while on
the other hand the public press article has specified order can take any format so long as the
main topic is discussed well.
Similarities between articles
The article tends to be similar in different ways. The following are ways in which the two types
of articles are similar; both articles use the concept of research to explain the issue of depression
and gender in human beings (Seidler, Dawes, Rice, Oliffe & Dhillon, 2016). For example, each
article uses statistical data to compare various phenomena’s when describing the topic. They
have employed percentage and number to compare facts. In addition, the articles tend to describe
the content using similar topic but of different case studies. For examples, comparing the issue of

Psychology
depression by use of different topic with each topic analyzing approach taken in depression and
gender difference.
Situation which will use popular press article and primary research article
The situation which will be beneficial when using a popular press article is when one is in
need of trying to explain how a certain contemporary issue is affecting the society at large. For
example our article has clearly explained how social media is a source of depression to girls than
men. This means getting a piece of simple information that will guide in analyzing the current
phenomenon while situation which will be beneficial using peer-reviewed research article is
when one needs to research a particular topic or a case study. For example, in the topic of gender
and depression required peer-reviewed research articles so as to come up with adequate
information related to the topic of study (Tement, Pahor & Jaušovec, 2016).
Therefore, to sum up, the paper has provided an outline of how different articles both
public and research article explains the issue of depression and gender. Each case study targeted
different participants who gave information relevant to the topic of depression and gender.

Psychology
References
Herbison, C. E., Allen, K., Robinson, M., Newnham, J., & Pennell, C. (2017). The impact of life
stress on adult depression and anxiety is dependent on gender and timing of
exposure. Development and psychopathology, 29(4), 1443-1454.
Maji, S. (2018). Society and ‘good woman’: A critical review of gender difference in
depression. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 64(4), 396-405.
McLeod, G. F. H., Horwood, L. J., & Fergusson, D. M. (2016). Adolescent depression, adult
mental health and psychosocial outcomes at 30 and 35 years. Psychological
medicine, 46(7), 1401-1412.
Nadeau, M. M., Balsan, M. J., & Rochlen, A. B. (2016). Men’s depression: Endorsed
experiences and expressions. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 17(4), 328.
Neitzke, A. B. (2016). An illness of power: gender and the social causes of depression. Culture,
medicine, and psychiatry, 40(1), 59-73.
Oliffe, J. L., Kelly, M. T., Bottorff, J. L., Johnson, J. L., & Wong, S. T. (2017). “He’s more
typically female because he’s not afraid to cry”: Connecting heterosexual gender
relations and men’s depression. In The psychology of gender and health (pp. 177-197).
Academic Press.
Petterson, L. J., VanderLaan, D. P., & Vasey, P. L. (2017). Sex, sexual orientation, gender
atypicality, and indicators of depression and anxiety in childhood and
adulthood. Archives of sexual behavior, 46(5), 1383-1392.

Psychology
Salk, R. H., Hyde, J. S., & Abramson, L. Y. (2017). Gender differences in depression in
representative national samples: meta-analyses of diagnoses and
symptoms. Psychological bulletin, 143(8), 783.
Seidler, Z. E., Dawes, A. J., Rice, S. M., Oliffe, J. L., & Dhillon, H. M. (2016). The role of
masculinity in men's help-seeking for depression: A systematic review. Clinical
Psychology Review, 49, 106-118.
Tement, S., Pahor, A., & Jaušovec, N. (2016). EEG alpha frequency correlates of burnout and
depression: The role of gender. Biological psychology, 114, 1-12.