Bereavement and grief have been the source of many psychological studies with many of these studies focusing on that of gender differences in widowhood. Through research it has been noted that there are many conflicting answers to the question “do males and females cope with bereavement differently?” John Bowlby (1980, pp.179) is quite clear in his suggestion that this question is an insignificant one; proposing that the principal factors that should be considered with regards to bereavement are that of the person’s personality, and their social and psychological circumstances. Undeniably, there is no available scientific evidence to indicate gender differences in the occurrence of grief on the death of a loved one: both men and women grieve …show more content…
This reorientation occurs in two spheres: the internal sphere of emotions, beliefs, and cognitions; and the external sphere of roles and behaviours. Such reorientation takes place in the context of family, work, friends, and activities and can be directed, to some extent, by the informed griever. Is it important to study gender differences in reactions to bereavement? The views of the late John Bowlby were quite clear, as the following statement shows: Whatever correlations there may be between the ... sex of the bereaved and the tendency for grief to take a pathological course, the correlations are low and probably of little importance compared to [other] variables ... This perhaps is fortunate since, in our professional role of trying to understand and help bereaved people who may be in difficulty, it is their personalities and current social and psychological circumstances that we are dealing with; whereas ... sex of the bereaved [is] unalterable (p 179). According to Bowlby, the topic of gender differences in bereavement is unimportant: to help the bereaved, he maintained, one must look at other variables such as personality factors and lack of resources or support during bereavement. In any case, since the sex of the bereaved cannot be changed, studying these differences would not