---
title: Do women's emotions change in a pattern matching the 'Ms. Hyde' idea during the premenstrual phase?
description: There is a pattern of women becoming more irritable and withdrawn before their period, but this change is much smaller than normal personality differences or
url: https://niyora.com/research/papers/will-premenstrual-syndrome-produce-a-ms-hyde-evidence-from-daily-administrations-1989/
---

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- Do women's emotions change in a pattern matching the 'Ms. Hyde' idea during the premenstrual phase?

Lab study, 1989

# Do women's emotions change in a pattern matching the 'Ms. Hyde' idea during the premenstrual phase?

There is a pattern of women becoming more irritable and withdrawn before their period, but this change is much smaller than normal personality differences or the effects of stressful events.

 Early or limited evidence

22 women over 49 consecutive days

## What they did

22 women completed a questionnaire about emotions and a short diary every day for 49 consecutive days.

## What they found

Emotions related to being friendly and outgoing varied with menstrual cycle position, but emotions about feeling shy did not. Women showed a pattern of becoming more irritable and withdrawn before their period. However, these premenstrual changes were much smaller than the normal differences between people or the effects of stress.

## What it means for you

While there is a premenstrual pattern in some emotions, it is weaker than people's natural personality differences or the effects of stress. This suggests PMS emotional changes may be less dramatic than the popular 'Ms. Hyde' idea suggests. The study is small and lasted only 49 days.

22

women

49

consecutive days

868

total days of data analyzed

## About the study

Original title Will premenstrual syndrome produce a Ms. Hyde?: evidence from daily administrations of the Emotions Profile Index Authors Bisson C, Whissell C Journal Psychological reports Year 1989 Study design Lab study Participants 22 What was tested Daily emotion tracking Read the paper [doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1989.65.1.179](https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1989.65.1.179)

## Topics

[Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)](https://niyora.com/research/topics/condition-pms/)[Irritability and anger](https://niyora.com/research/topics/symptom-irritability-anger/)

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