Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Gender differences in the confessional

A study that definitely needed to be done.... A priest has cataloged gender differences in what they confess as sins.

Women's top two sins were pride and envy.

Men's top two sins--get ready for a real shocker--lust and gluttony (followed by sloth). Who would have thought that men obsess over sex and food, and when they're done they look for the remote control?

(It would be interesting to read a more fine-grained analysis of the confessions, beyond just general categories, but those data might be hard to get.)

Thanks David!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have found during my tender 40 years walking this planet that people are very aware of what's acceptable for them to talk about and what is not. so I wonder.... are the things confessed by those men and women really representative of whats actually going on in their lives or is it that they know those "confessions" are the safe ones that everyone else expects?

Jay Livingston said...

I followed the link to the article, and as Mark implies, the methods section left much to be desired (no, not that kind of desire). Also no mention of the IRB.