Several methods have been employed to determine whether the higher prevalence rates of personality disorders in women represents gender-biased criteria, gender-biased application of the criteria, or

1) Having professionals make a diagnosis after reading a case history, with the patient described as a woman in half the cases and as a man in the other. Finding: more of the "female" patients were diagnosed with a personality disorder than were "male" patients (hysterical personality disorder, the precursor of histrionic)
2) Analyzing real cases (the symptoms listed for patients). Finding: whereas symptoms that met diagnostic criteria for histrionic personality disorder were found equally among men and women, women were more likely to be diagnosed
3) Comparing diagnosis rates for histrionic personality disorder among patients to rates found in epidemiological studies. Finding: higher diagnosis rates in women for the patients, equal prevalence in the epidemiological studies