Women's Work

How biological factors impact job performance

By Meredith Melnick Monday, July 25, 2011
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    Female soldiers may do a good job of suppressing pain responses, but physiology doesn't make it easy. Men produce endogenous opioids--neurochemicals that function as natural anesthetics--more abundantly than women do. Women are also more susceptible to inflammatory-pain disorders like fibromyalgia and arthritis, especially because estrogen can worsen inflammation. Even female newborns demonstrate higher pain sensitivity than male newborns. While popular wisdom says men are likelier to complain about their pain, researchers found that male study subjects cowboyed up and hid their suffering when a woman gathered the data.

    Sources: Jrn. of Abnor. Psych.; Pain Med.; NCWP; Vanguard; NCRW; NHTSA; Jrn. of Psych. Rsrch.; Harris; Mgmt. Sci.; Federal Highway Adm.; Jrn. of Neuroscience; Endocrine Rev.; Jrn. of Pain

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