Gottman and Levenson ( 1988) theorized that many commonly noted gender
differences in relationships can be derived from a hypothesis about gender
differences in autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity. The weak form of this
hypothesis is that males recover more slowly from ANS arousal than females.
Their review of the literature on gender differences in physiological responses to
stress provided some support for this hypothesis. If this gender difference is true,
and if chronic ANS activation is considered to be harmful, unpleasant, and
undesirable, then men might be more inclined than women to avoid situations that
would be associated with repeated high levels of ANS activation, and to withdraw
from negative affect in marital conflict. Taking this argument a step further, if
intense negative affect is seen as activating high levels of ANS activation
(especially in men), then men may try to manage the level of negative affect to
which they are exposed. They may try to create a rational, as opposed to an
emotional, climate in relationships ( Kelley et al., 1978), which can be a major
source of repeated high level negative emotions and of concomitant high levels of
ANS activation; they may become more conciliatory and less conflict engaging
than females; and they may try to terminate negative affect encounters by
withdrawing, that is, by stonewalling. Gottman and Levenson ( 1988) presented
instances from the marriage research literature that show that each of these
behavioral characteristics has been ascribed to men. In direct contrast, women in
this literature have been described as being less conciliatory, more conflict
engaging, and less likely to withdraw from negative affect.

Throughout this book, I have noted differences between husbands and
wives wherever they occurred in my data and in the data of other
investigators. In general, these differences are quite pervasive and

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