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In 1980, 3- to 5- year-old children and adults identified the sex of “gender-neutral puppy dogs depicting happy, angry, fearful, and sad emotions” (Niedenthal, Kruth-Gruber, & Ric, 2006, 275) for Birnbaum and colleagues. This experiment measured the children’s and adult’s stereotypes concerning sex differences in emotional expression. Both children and adults attributed the happy-, sad- and fearful-looking puppies with the female sex and the angry-looking puppies with the male sex.

As a sex, females are thought to be more tender. The male sex, however, is emotionally stoic. One theory states that the female brain is “hard-wired for empathy” while the male brain is more “hard-wired for understanding and building systems.” (Cohen, 2003) This is called the empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory. It is important to remember that the sex of a person is not the sole determinant of the type of brain he or she has.

In many ways, the female and male genders are similar to the expectations of the female and male sex. There is a difference between the terms gender and sex among the social science community. The term sex is frequently used interchangeably with the term gender. These two terms can be a bit ambiguous and therefore some authors argue that the terms should be clearly distinguished (Deaux, 1993; Shields, 2000, 2002). Sex refers to the biological attributes of male or female and gender refers to the psychological and socio-cultural characteristics associated with maleness or femaleness (Niedenthal, Kruth-Gruber, & Ric, 2006, 273).

A Cambridge University lab showed that at birth girls gaze longer at a face while suspended mechanical mobiles, rather than a face, keep boy’s attention for longer. The Cambridge team also found that the amount of eye contact children make is partially determined by prenatal testosterone, a biological factor (Cohen, 2003). The female sex is also believed to express more fear, love, and sadness while men are believed to express more anger. These are mere beliefs, though, as the question of whether men and women differ in emotional experiences and expressions as well as in their judgment regarding the emotions of others has not been clearly answered (Niedenthal, Kruth-Gruber, & Ric, 2006, 272). It could be that ideas on emotional expression are based solely on stereotypical beliefs.

One stereotype of the female gender is that women are thought to be more sensitive to others. Women are also thought to pay more attention to other people’s body language and are expected to be better at judging others’ emotions from nonverbal cues. Women are also rated as expressing emotional states more than men. It is important to note, however, that women do not necessarily experience emotional states more than men.

Interestingly enough, many women in fact report experiencing emotions, especially the powerless emotions such as fear, shame, guilt, and sadness, with greater frequency and more intensely than men. Men state expressing the emotions of anger, contempt, pride, and disgust (Niedenthal, Kruth-Gruber, & Ric, 2006, 280). These findings lead one to believe that gender stereotypes do in fact mirror reality.

In their very nature, stereotypes create expectations. Stereotypes might influence the emotional experiences of men and women, and when the stereotypes do influence the emotional experience, the emotional experience can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This self-fulfilling prophecy effect shows that the female gender might only experience more powerless emotions because it is expected of them.

Females are found to display greater overall emotional expressivity than males across several types of measures of expressivity (Niedenthal, Kruth-Gruber, & Ric, 2006, 282). The different measures that were used in this finding are the electromyography recordings (EMG), observer ratings, and self-ratings of emotional expression. Sex differences in emotional expressivity depend on the context as well as the specific emotions that are expressed (Niedenthal, Kruth-Gruber, & Ric, 2006, 282). Studies that measure facial expression by the use of EMG show that women are more adequately able to manipulate their facial expressions than men. Men, however can inhibit their expressions better than females when cued to do so. In the observer ratings women’s facial expressions are easier to read as opposed to men’s except for the expression of anger (Niedenthal, Kruth-Gruber, & Ric, 2006, 282).

Men and women also have different cognitive processing capabilities. This is seen in the fact that, according to a study done by Hall and Matsumoto, “women are more accurate than men in judging emotional meaning from nonverbal cues even under situations of minimal stimulus information.” (205) The reason for this is not concrete. It could be that from an early age women are socialized to decode emotions better than men, or it could be that women’s brains, from birth are equipped to better to decode emotions than men’s brains.

Nonverbal behaviors communicate 50 to 80 percent of the meaning in a conversation. Depending on one’s facial expression, inflection, voice tone, and gestures, the same words can take on many different meanings (Oh, 2003). For example, the words “I promise” can take on many connotations. Said with sarcasm, the two words could express a non-caring attitude, but said with sincerity, the two words might convey love and respect. According to Oh, research implies that women are more skilled at inferring nonverbal behavior (2003). According to conflict theorists, a woman’s ability to better interpret nonverbal communication is a protective measure. The less powerful, such as women and minorities, have a bigger need to understand that the more powerful people, such as men and the majority, are truly planning and thinking. The female gender’s ability to decode nonverbal behavior than is a survival instinct, which might lead one to believe that the female sex, not the gender, can interpret nonverbal communication better.

Expression and interpretation of nonverbal cues depends on the context of what is being done. The face is full of expressions that can be interpreted by analyzing someone’s lip movements, the lifting and shrinking of the cheeks, eyebrows, and eyelids and their movements. The eyebrows and cheeks more easily judge positive affective situations whereas sadness is more central to the eyes and eyelid areas (Oh, 2003). In a study where researchers wanted to concentrate on nonverbal expressions by just looking at the eyebrows, lips, and the eyes after the participants had read certain cue cards that were either negative or positive and recorded the responses. In the results of this experiment it is shown that feminine emotions happen more frequently and have a higher intensity than men. In relation to the masculine emotions, such as anger, the results are flipped and the women’s frequency and intensity is lower than the men’s.

The research concerning the differences in men and women’s decoding as well as expressing of emotions is vast. The socialization of girls and boys explains the gender norms and stereotypes. With every new generation, the previous generations, such as parents, convey the stereotypes for each gender. For example, a father will push his son to behave competitively and aggressively by rough housing with him. The same father, however, will seek to teach his daughter to be cooperative and friendly by attending a tea party with her or playing dolls instead of rough housing.

It is important to remember that parents do not rely solely on gender stereotypes in raising their children to respond in socially accepted emotions. Sex-related characteristics also play a part by impacting a child’s language skills, temperament, and sociability (Niedenthal, Kruth-Gruber, & Ric, 2006, 300).

Given the research, it might seem that stereotype and sex play an equal role in the existence of the emotional woman and unemotional man. This is false as according to Niedenthal, Kruth-Gruber, & Ric it appears that the gender stereotypes and expectations exist in a person’s mind more than in their actual doing and feeling (303). The gender stereotypes do contribute to when men and women deem it appropriate to express emotions. This pressures men and women to behave in a stereotype-consistent manner but does not mean that men and women actually experience emotions in the stereotype-consistent manner.

When returning to literature discussing the difference in emotions for the male gender and the female gender, it is important to keep in mind the sex differences which are not invariant and universal but are instead linked to differences in men and women’s social roles. As time marches on, the processes linked to sex adapt and might also produce changes in emotional expression and experience for men and women (Niedenthal, Kruth-Gruber, & Ric, 2006, 304).

References:

Baron-Cohen, S. (April 17, 2003). They just can't help it. In The Guardian. Retrieved April 13, 2008, from http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,,938022,00.html.

Deaux, K. (1993). Commentary: Sorry, wrong number – A reply to Gentile’s call. Psychological Science, 4, 125-126.

Hall, J.A. & Matsumoto, D. (2004). Gender Differences in Judgments of Multiple Emotions From Facial Expressions. American Psychological Association, 4(2), 201-206.

Niedenthal, P.M., Kruth-Gruber, S., & Ric, F. (2006). Psychology and emotion. (Principles of Social Psychology series). ISBN 1-84169-402-9. New York: Psychology Press.

Oh, S.S. (December 15, 2003). Explanation for Gender Differences. In Explanation for the Gender Differences in Expressing Emotions. Retrieved April 15, 2008, from http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/communication/soojin.htm.

Shields, S. A. (2000). Thinking about gender, thinking about theory: Gender and emotional experience. In A. Fischer (Ed.), Gender and emotion: Social Psychological perspectives (pp. 3-23). London: Cambridge University Press.

Shields, S. A. (2002). Speaking from the heart: Gender and the social meaning of emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.