Gender Differences in Dreams: A Matching Study
Author(s): Michael Schredl, Christina Schwenger, Annkathrin Dehe
Abstract: In clinical praxis, the question whether it is possible – based on a dream report – to make any inferences about the characteristics of the dreamer often arises. For the present study, gender was selected for the matching task. Two judges were able to match the dreamer’s gender based on a single dream report better than chance. The rate of correct decisions (about 64%), however, was not very high, so that a reliable matching for a single case is not possible. It must be concluded that even for simple characteristics more dream material is necessary to make a valid prediction. Interestingly, the female judges have been more confident in matching women’s dreams correctly than men’s dreams. Qualitative studies may be able to identify the dream characteristics that enable the judges to match the dream correctly.
Keywords: Dreams; Dream content; Gender differences; Person perception; Prediction (psychology); Judgment accuracy; Individual differences
Article: e21003
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