strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde: How PMS become a cultural phenomenon and a psychiatric disorder, The

The Jekyll and Hyde phenomenon can also be described as a selfserving bias, such as the actor-observer phenomenon (Jones & Nisbett, 1972) (also known as the fundamental error of attribution). In the actor--observer phenomenon, individuals make more situational attributions to explain their own behavior and more dispositional attributions to explain the behavior of others. The belief in the notion that hormones can alter a woman's personality allows women to explain the "unfeminine" parts of their personality in situational terms (i.e., their hormonal profile), which will return to "normal" in a few days. The actor-observer phenomenon may also explain in part why many women believe that other women's premenstrual symptoms are worse than their own (e.g., Clarke & Ruble, 1978; Parlee, 1974).

The application of the PMS label to the self may be a form of self-- handicapping, that is, the setting up of insurmountable (or nearly so) obstacles to success so that the inevitable failure can later be attributed to the obstacles rather than to one's own lack of effort or ability. Self-help books encourage women to tell others that they have PMS. As soon as one's PMS is known, it provides an excuse for any emotional outburst, careless mistake, error in judgment, or missed deadline. Participants in one study (Bates & Beck, 1991) who reported higher degrees of premenstrual symptoms also displayed a greater proclivity to dispositional selfhandicapping. These same participants were also significantly more likely than others to report that PMS interfered with their performance. Women who use PMS as a self-handicapping strategy are in a win-win situation. If they perform poorly, they can blame their failure on PMS; if they perform well, they are considered to be exemplary because they succeeded despite their PMS. All of these variations of self-serving biases sustain the romantic discourse noted by Swann and Ussher (1995), and they position the biomedical discourse as women's "friend." Any one who doesn't accept the PMS explanation for a woman's shortcomings is considered to be insensitive or ignorant.

The rapid growth and acceptance of the stereotype of the premenstrual woman may have been facilitated by the human tendency to exaggerate the negative. In a recent review article, Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, and Vohs (2001) demonstrated that, across a wide range of interpersonal and other life events, bad (or negative) information is processed more thoroughly than good information. They noted that "bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones" (p. 323). The fact that the stereotype of premenstrual women, and the whole notion of menstrual madness, fits in with ancient ideas about the irrational and erratic behavior of women makes this particular "bad information" particularly salient, easy to remember, and understandable.