GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ANXIETY AMONG UNDERGRADUATES FROM SIXTEEN ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

Social Behavior and Personality, 2006 by Alansari, Bader M

This study investigated gender differences in anxiety among volunteer undergraduates recruited from sixteen Islamic countries; Algiers, Egypt, Emirates, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (N= 7,506). The Kuwait University Anxiety Scale (Abdel-Khalek, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) was used in its Arabic form for all groups except the Pakistan group, for which the English version of KUAS was used. There are significant gender differences in 11 Islamic countries out of 16 in which females tended to be higher on the anxiety scale: Egypt, Iraq , Morocco, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Lebanon, Pakistan, Algiers, Yemen and Syria, while there was no significant difference in anxiety between the genders in the following five countries: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Sudan, Emirates and Palestine. The salient gender differences were interpreted in the light of a socialization process; especially sex-typing and gender roles.

Keywords: anxiety, KUAS, gender, Arab country, Islamic country, cross-cultural research, undergraduates.

Anxiety is one of the most fundamental of all constructs in psychology. The concept of anxiety is central in conceptualization in psychopathology, motivation, and personality. Thus, there are wide-ranging points of view and perspectives on anxiety, such as that it is: normal facilitating, pathological debilitating, a negative affect, an emotional state or reaction, a provider of motivation, a personality trait, or disorder and syndrome. So, research on anxiety is one of the most active areas in psychology, and it has been the focus of considerable study especially in the last two decades (see for example, Cox & Norton, 2000; Cox, Wessel, Norton, Swinson, & Direnfield, 1995; Last, 1993; Norton, Cox, Asmundson, & Maser, 1995; Rapee, 1996; Wolman & Stricker, 1994).

Among the negative emotions, anxiety is the most widely experienced of all. Almost all human beings have recognized, and have experienced, states of anxiety. Notwithstanding the universality of anxiety, the question can be raised as to whether there are cultural differences pertaining to the nature and level of anxiety. Sartorius (1990) stated

the analysis of the origin of the words used to describe anxiety can help in understanding how the concept is conceived of in different cultures... In ancient Egyptian language, the word for acute fear is composed of two symbols, one indicating narrowness and the other showing a man prostrate, as if dying. The latter is the same symbol used to describe a severely wounded person... . In Arabic, anxiety's meanings are similar to the Slavic idioms. There are a variety of words used to suggest a state of anxiety, some referring to restlessness, others to constriction of chest or stomach. (p. 5f).

In the field of anxiety research, the assessment and measurement issues are of major interest (Antony, Orsillo, & Roemer, 2001; Maltby, Lewis, & Hill, 2000). In Arabic psychological studies on anxiety, there are two trends. First, a trend towards translating and adapting the Western, mainly American and British, scales and inventories, for example, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, 1983, adapted by Abdel-Khalek, 1989). Second, there has been a trend towards composing and constructing local scales. It is our contention that there is a great need to develop and validate psychological tests in Arabic by Arab-speaking psychologists, with good translations into English to address the growing interest in cross-cultural comparisons, thereby bringing alternative culture perspectives to scale construction. The Kuwait University Anxiety Scale (KUAS) is one of these.

The KUAS (Abdel-Khalek, 2000, 2002(a) (b), 2003, 2004) was developed originally in Arabic and has comparable forms and several results in English (Abdel-Khalek & Lester, 2002, 2003), Spanish (Abdel-Khalek, Tomás-Sábado, & Gomez-Benito, 2004), and German (unpublished). Based on the Arabic version, results are available for college students from specific Arab countries, namely, Kuwait (Alansari, 2002, 2004b), Syria (Abdel-Khalek & Rudwan, 2001), Saudi Arabia (Abdel-Khalek & Al-Damaty, 2003), and Lebanon (Abdel-Khalek & Al-Yahfoufi, 2004). It is believed that the scale adds to the current collection of anxiety measures, because its psychometric properties in different countries are good.

The aim of the current investigation was to explore sex-related differences in anxiety as assessed by the KUAS, using undergraduates recruited from 16 Islamic countries.

METHOD

PARTICIPANTS

The KUAS was mailed to either university rectors or colleagues in the selected countries included in the present study. The final sample included 7,506 respondents distributed among the 16 countries: Saudi Arabia, Malek Sued University (630); Qatar, Qatar University (400); Syria, Damascus University (692); Egypt, Alexandria University (300) and Mansrra University (384) and Al-Aswan University (250); Algiers, Institute of Psychology and Educational Sciences (308); Oman, Sultan Qaboos University (244); Iraq, University of Baghdad (290) & Mussels University (200); Yemen, University of Adan (512); Lebanon, Lebanese American University (246); Pakistan, Iqraa University (262); Palestine, University of Gaza Strip (568); Kuwait, Kuwait University (376); Morocco, Minas University (692); Jordan, Al-Isra Private University (428); Sudan, University of Sudan for Science and Technology (250);UAE, United Arab Emirates University (274).