When rating their health, people typically consider various
aspects of their health, as well as the implicit importance of
each. Further, men and women differed systematically when
evaluating their health in general (Benyamini, Leventhal, &
Leventhal, 2000). Men’s health ratings pertained to serious,
life-threatening diseases (such as cardiac disease), but
women’s health ratings included both life-threatening and
nonlife-threatening disease (such as arthritis). In addition,
gender differences were found in the effect of negative emotion
on general health ratings. For men emotion was linked
primarily to serious disease, and for women it was linked to
a wider variety of life factors.