Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

Emotion347CRITICAL THINKINGAre Women Really More Emotional Than Men?“You never talk about your feelings!!” she said in exasperation.“And you never stop talking about yours!!” he shot back,frowning. Is this scene familiar?One of our culture’s most pervasive gender stereotypes is thatwomen express their emotions more frequently and intenselythan men do. In contrast, men supposedly are calmer and possessgreater emotional control (Plant & others, 2000). Women,it’s thought, cry easily. Real men don’t cry at all.Studies have shown that both men and women view womenas the more emotional sex (Robinson & Clore, 2002). Womenalso place a higher value on emotional expressiveness than domen (Shields, 2002).Women display more emotional awareness than men do(Boden & Berenbaum, 2007). Women are more accurate thanmen in deciphering the emotional meaning of nonverbal cues,such as facial expressions (Hall & Matsumoto, 2004). And, theytend to be more sensitive and responsive to the emotional exchangesin a relationship, often playing the role of the “emotionspecialist.” But do such widely held stereotypes reflect actualgender differences in emotional experience?Consider a study by Ann Kring and Albert Gordon (1998), inwhich participants separately watched film clips that typicallyevoke happiness, fear, or sadness. For example, a fear-evokingfilm clip depicted a man almost falling off the ledge of a tallbuilding. During the film, the participants’ facial expressionswere secretly videotaped from behind a one-way mirror. Galvanicskin response was also monitored as an index of physiologicalarousal. Galvanic skin response (GSR) measures the skin’selectrical conductivity, which changes in response to sweatingand increased blood flow. After the film clip, the participantsrated the extent to which they experienced different emotions.Kring and Gordon found that men and women did not differin their self-ratings of the emotions they experienced in responseto the film clips. However, the women were more emotionallyexpressive than men. Women displayed more positive facial expressionsin response to happy film clips and more negative facialexpressions in response to the sad or fearful scenes. In termsof physiological arousal, the sexes did not differ in their reactionsto the happy or sad films. But when it came to the frighteningfilm clips, the men reacted much more strongly than the women.In a similar study, electrodes monitored facial muscle activity ofmale and female participants as they looked at fear-evoking pictures(Thunberg & Dimberg, 2000). Even though men andwomen rated the pictures as equally unpleasant, the women’sfacial muscles reacted much morestrongly to the fearful images.ZITSThese and similar findings suggest thatmen and women are fairly similar in theexperience of emotions, but that they dodiffer in the expression of emotions. Howcan we account for the gender differencesin emotional expression?First, psychologists have consistentlyfound differences in the types ofemotions expressed by men andwomen (see Shields, 2002). Analyzingcross-cultural data from 37 countries around the world, AgnetaFischer and her colleagues (2004) found this consistentpattern: Women report experiencing and expressing more sadness,fear, and guilt, while men report experiencing and expressingmore anger and hostility.Fischer and her colleagues (2004) argue that the male role encouragesthe expression of emotions that emphasize power andassertiveness. These powerful emotions—anger, hostility, andcontempt—are emotions that confirm the person’s autonomyand status. In contrast, the female role encourages the expressionof emotions that imply self-blame, vulnerability, and helplessness.These powerless emotions—fear, sadness, shame, and guilt—areemotions that help maintain social harmony with others by minimizingconflict and hostility.For both men and women, the expression of emotions isstrongly influenced by culturally determined display rules, or societalnorms of appropriate behavior in different situations. Inmany cultures, including the United States, women are alloweda wider range of emotional expressiveness and responsivenessthan men. For men, it’s considered “unmasculine” to be tooopen in expressing certain emotions. Crying is especially taboo(Warner & Shields, 2007). Thus, there are strong cultural andgender-role expectations concerning emotional expressivenessand sensitivity.Like so many stereotypes, the gender stereotypes of emotionsare not completely accurate. As psychologists Michael Robinsonand Gerald Clore (2002) point out, men and women believe thattheir emotions differ far more than they actually do. Men andwomen differ less in their experience of emotion than they do intheir expression of those emotions. However, women are themore emotional sex in terms of the ease with which they expresstheir emotions, think about emotions, and recall emotionalexperiences (Feldman Barrett & others, 2000).CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS How are emotionally expressive males generally regarded inyour social group? Emotionally expressive females? Does itmake you uncomfortable when gender display rules are violatedby either sex? Why? What kinds of consequences might occur if gender displayrules were violated in a business environment? On a sportsteam? In a classroom?© Zits Partnership, Reprinted with specialpermission of King Features Syndicate.