Effects of Discounting Cues and Gender on Apprehension

Two experiments examined the hypothesis that quantitative depictions of improvement in threatening trends that were subsequently discounted would engender greater apprehension than undiscounted depictions of improving trends among men but not among women. Support for this interaction hypothesis was obtained in Experiment 1. When improvement in the threatening trends was depicted verbally, the interaction between discounting cues and gender was hypothesized to reverse. Experiment 2 found evidence supporting the predicted reversal of the interaction found in Experiment 1. These interaction effects are explained in terms of differential vigilance potentiated by quantitative and verbal depictions of threatening trends among women and men and gender differences in quantitative and verbal skills.