Gender differences in dream socialisation in children and adolescents

Abstract

Dream socialisation encompasses factors that might affect children's attitudes towards dreams or their dream recall frequencies directly; for example, by being asked about dreams by other persons or the sharing of dreams with others. The present study in 170 children/adolescents (age range 10–15 years) was designed to study whether dream socialisation might help to explain the well-documented gender difference regarding dream recall frequencies and related variables in adolescence and adulthood. Gender-specific effects regarding the frequency of communicating about dreams, especially for same-sex friendships, were found, and the correlation supports the hypothesis that these variables might be of importance to dreaming in later life. In order to corroborate the results of this first quantitative study of dream socialisation in children/adolescents, longitudinal studies as well as experimental studies manipulating dream socialisation variables are necessary.

Keywords::

• dream recall
• nightmares
• dream socialisation
• gender differences

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Schredl

Michael Schredl has worked since 1990 in the sleep laboratory of the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany. His publications cover various topics such as dream recall, dream content analysis, nightmares, dreams and sleep disorders, and sleep physiology. He is editor of the online-journal International Journal of Dream Research.

Angela Buscher

Angela Buscher is a psychology student who participated in the dream research project “Dream socialisation” supervised by the first author.

Cornelia Haaß

Cornelia Haaß is a psychology student who participated in the dream research project “Dream socialisation” supervised by the first author.

Melanie Scheuermann

Melanie Scheuermann is a psychology student who participated in the dream research project “Dream socialisation” supervised by the first author.

Katharina Uhrig

Katharina Uhrig is a psychology student who participated in the dream research project “Dream socialisation” supervised by the first author.