Menstruation is classically considered to be a negative event, and throughout history has been associated with uncleanliness and evil and secrecy.
Although menstruation is a normal part of the female reproductive cycle, it is the subject of considerable misunderstanding as a taboo. In ancient times, a menstruating woman was regarded as unclean and liable to contaminate foods she touched, or cause crops to shrivel. The major motive for this taboo appears to be the fear of blood. It is thought that menstrual taboos were enforced by men who connected a woman's monthly cycle with the turning of the tides, the changing of the seasons and other events that were mysterious to them.
Superstition and taboos around a woman's monthly cycle continue to persist in our contemporary society.
The belief that the customary process of menstruation is somehow dirty or evil is still evident in the slang expressions of a woman having the "curse" or being "on the rag". It is often seen by men and women as a physical or emotional handicap that makes women "inferior" to men, and many couples view intercourse during menstruation as messy and sloppy and avoid intimate activities for hygienic reasons, although this is not medically necessary.
Women’s reports of their pre-menstrual experiences are often distorted by stereotyped attitudes to menstruation. Experimental results support this idea. For example, McFarland, Ross, and DeCourville (1989) asked women to rate the intensity of their premenstrual symptoms and feelings at the pre-menstrual stage of their cycle and after their pre-menstrual stage. Their results exposed that women retrospectively rated their premenstrual symptoms as more severe and unpleasant than they actually were at the time. McFarland et al.’s results suggested that women’s memories and retrospective reports of pre-menstrual experiences are distorted by their beliefs about menstruation.
Walker (1992) conducted a study, which revealed the male and female attitudes with regards to influence of the menstrual cycle on academic performance, and endeavoured to discover whether the menstrual cycle had any potential affect on academic performance. While Koeske & Koeske (1975) conducted a study which attempted to find out if there were any relation to the menstrual cycle and if the menstrual cycle affected behavior such as depression, shortness of temper (often called mood swings).
This study is a reconstruction of the Walker study, and has been conducted to see if the findings continue to consent to those found in the Walker study. Two hypotheses have been produced from Walker study. They are:
- Participants who read the pre-menstrual version of the vignette will rate menstrual cycle as more important than participants who read the mid-cycle version.
- There may be differences in the rated importance of the menstrual cycle and other variables (such as lack of sleep).
Method
Participants
The participants in this study were all psychology students from Keele University. All of the students in a lab class participated. 25 participants received information about Jane saying the examination she took two days before her period, and 24 participants received information about Jane saying the examination was taken two weeks before her period was due. The lab class consisted of a mixture of males and females. All of the results were collected and used.
Stimuli
The stimulus was on how the information had been presented information sheets given to the participants. Educational, personal and health information were provided
Materials
Each participant was issued a sheet of paper containing information about Jane. (See appendix A). Half of the participants were given a sheet saying Jane was premenstrual (2 days before her period) when she took the exam, and the other half were given a sheet saying Jane was mid cycle (2 weeks before her period was due) when she took the exam. All of the participants completed a questionnaire after considering the information they had been given about Jane.
Design
This study employed an unrelated/ independent measures design. The experiment was a single blind study because the participants did not know the actual purpose of the experiment. The participants chose where they wished to sit, and so it was difficult to ensure that there were a similar number of males and females in each group. The dependent variable was the rating of importance of the information given to make a decision whether Jane should pass or fail the examination. The independent variable was information regarding the menstrual cycle (mid cycle or premenstrual). In order to control this experiment, the participants were split into two groups and both groups had a sheet containing the same information, except one word was different. The word “days” was altered to “weeks” in order to change Jane from premenstrual to mid cycle where necessary.
Procedure
The participants in this study entered the lab and chose where they sat, when all of the participants were seated, information sheets and questionnaires were distributed. Half of the room were given a sheet that indicated the Jane was premenstrual; the other half of the room received an information sheet indicating Jane was mid cycle. Although the participants were asked not to talk to one another, they were not given any reason to assume that any one else was receiving a different sheet to themselves. The participants were not aware of what the experiment was about, they were simply given instructions to read the information and complete the questionnaire.
The participants read the information sheet that they had been provided with and were asked to consider whether they would let Jane pass or fail the examination. They were then asked to rate from one to ten (one being no importance and ten being extremely important) the importance that certain pieces of information had had upon their decision. The information they were asked to rate included menstrual cycle, qualifications, Hay fever, lack of sleep, nervousness and dislike of the subject.
The ratings sheets were then collected in, and the participants were informed that they had been taking part in an experiment and were given details about it. The results were then written down. (See appendix B)
Results
The majority of the participants decided that Jane should pass the examination, however, approximately 3 participants said she should fail.
The importance of six different factors (menstrual cycle, qualifications, hay fever, lack of sleep, nervous and dislike the subject) on making the decision on whether Jane should pass or fail the examination, were rated. The totals of two of these factors (menstrual cycle and lack of sleep) were calculated, and then the mean, and finally the standard deviations. (See appendix C)
Table 1. The mean importance ratings given for each factor by each group
Table 1 illustrates the mean and standard deviation for each factor for both the premenstrual group and the mid cycle group. It is clear to see by looking at the means that both groups considered qualifications to be important in making their decisions, however, for the purpose of this study, only the menstrual cycle and lack of sleep factors are relevant.
Figure1. Mean ratings for each factor in each group
The graph in figure 1 makes it clear that the participants in both groups considered the lack of sleep to be of higher significance in influencing their decision than the menstrual cycle.
Two types of parametric tests were used to calculate both hypotheses; these included a related t-test and an unrelated t-test.
This is the result of the unrelated t-test:
(t(47) = 0.97, p > 0.05)
The results do not support the hypothesis because they are not bigger than the critical T value found on the table of critical values of T, therefore, there is not a significant difference. However, the results of the related t-test do support the second hypothesis, as there was a significant difference, but this did not coincide with the prediction.
The results of the pre-menstrual critical t-test were:
(t(24) = 4.06, p < 0.01)
The results of the mid cycle critical t-test were:
(t(23) = 5.66, p < 0.01).
The results of the premenstrual critical t-test were not significantly different to that of the mid-cycle critical t-test results, this was because the participants did not consider the lack of sleep or that Jane was either pre-menstrual or mid-cycle (depending on the information they had received) was of any relevance to their decision of whether Jane should pass or fail the exam.
(Calculations of the related t-test and the unrelated t-test are shown in appendix D)
Discussion
Although in this study, the second hypothesis was supported, but the first hypothesis was not, the overall outcome of results gathered were not affected. The results illustrate that the participants considered that the premenstrual and mid cycle stages of the menstrual cycle were not, on the whole, an affecting factor in the decision of whether Jane should pass or fail her exam, but instead, the lack of sleep was considered of greater importance in influencing the decision. The results of this study relate to the results found by Walker in his study. In the Walker study, the mean importance of the menstrual cycle for the pre-menstrual group was 3.95 and mid-cycle group was 3.01, while the mean importance of the lack of sleep for the pre-menstrual group was 4.31 and mid-cycle group was 3.74. The mean importance for the lack of sleep and menstrual cycle for this study, which can be seen in table 1, are similar to those that Walker calculated in his study.
In conclusion, this study has recognized that the menstrual cycle is of very little importance in influencing academic performance, but it is still considered a factor, even though it is not of great influence, when compared to the importance of lack of sleep.
The participants in both this, and the Walker study were students, and students are inclined to regard sleep as having an important purpose in their lives because they get up early for lectures, but go to sleep late because of social commitments. In order to achieve an extensive result, it might be constructive to include participants who are not students, and compare their results with the results of the student participants.
References
Coolican, H. (1999). Research methods and statistics in psychology (3rd ed.).
London: Hodder and Stoughton
Brooks, J., Ruble, D. N., & Clarke, A. E. (1977). College Women’s attitudes and expectations concerning menstrual-related changes. Psychosomatic Medicine, 39 288-298
Ruble, D. N., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (1979) Menstrual symptoms: A social cognition analysis. Journey of Behavioural Medicine, 2, 171-194
Koeske, R. K., & Koeske, G. F. (1975). An attributional approach to moods and the menstrual cycle. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 473- 478.
Walker, A. E. (1992). Men's and women's beliefs about the influence of the menstrual cycle on academic performance (a preliminary study). Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22, 896-909.
McFarland, C., Ross, M., & DeCourville, N. (1989) Women’s theories of menstruation and biases in recall menstrual symptoms. Journal of personality and social psychology, 57, 522-531
