Gender and Emotional Response

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Table of Contents

Abstract
Results
Discussion
References

Abstract

Feelings confined to individuals vary largely subject to the type of task presented. Psychologically, feelings provide a firm link between emotions and gender. A given environmental stimuli like anger or happiness may not be equally perceived by men and women. Overreactions to events like happiness and fear by individuals of both the sexes are a matter of investigation due to the fact that there could be bias towards one particular emotional event.

However, it is not known fully whether positive and negative emotions are equally perceived by males and females. Therefore, the main objective of the study was to determine the effects of gender and emotion reaction by evaluating the expression rate of males and females towards negative and positive emotions. A total of 17 students comprising13 females and 4 males, aged between 18 and 22 from University of California, Los Angeles were enrolled for the study under psychology research method course.

A 2×2 factorial design was used where independent variables happy and anger were selected as positive and negative emotions, respectively. Similarly, gender was selected as another independent variable. The results revealed that both positive and negative emotions were processed at a expression rate higher for positive emotions for men and low for women. Similarly, the expression rate was higher for negative emotions for women and low for men.

Overall the positive emotions have a significant impact on feelings and reactions for men compared to females. In contrast negative emotions have a significant impact on feelings and reactions for females compared to men. Semantic presentations have significant impact on the gender reactions compared to drawings and acoustics.

Therefore, it can be concluded that men have strong reaction towards positive emotions and women have strong reaction towards negative emotions.

Results

The study included a total of 17 participants of age range 18 to 22.There were 13 females and 4 males. Here, an estimate of average number of emotions recalled correctly was done when the emotions were presented in the form of words versus drawings to reflect the function of the way being processed. From the results, it was found hat positive emotions depicted in drawings were recalled significantly than that of words.

Next, the form in which the items were presented was found to have large effect on recall. This effect is more for words than for the drawings. To further determine this effect and reveal a significant main effect of type of processing, statistical test, ANOVA was applied. The average correct recall was significantly higher when the items were processed semantically(Mean- 8.3) than that presented acoustically (Mean- 7) irrespective of form in which they were presented.

The emotions type presented also reveled significant results when they were presented in drawings (Mean – 8.95) compared to that presented in words (Mean -6034).The type of interaction between type of processing and type of words is also significant at p =0.002.For comparing individual condition means, multiple parameter sample t test with a Bonferroni correction, to maintain an alpha level of 0.05 was conducted.

When presented as words ,the average correct recall for items was revealed to be significantly higher when they were processed to a semantic level (Mean = 7; S.D=1.07) when they were processed to an acoustic level (Mean =5.1;S.D.=2.08;p<0.025).When emotions were presented as words , the difference in average correct recall for items processed at semantic level.

This was more for women compared to men. Emotions have an overall effect on the processing o n the way they were being presented.

Discussion

Stereotypes are common for both males and females on emotional grounds. It is more frequently biased towards female at a one particular instance and males at another particular instance. This could be because all emotions unchangeably confined to female gender role stereotype compared to individual emotions like anger and sadness.

More probably, emotions of fear, sadness and happiness were more representative of women but anger is more representative of men (Hutson- Comeaux & Kelly, 2002).

In the present study, an investigation was carried out to determine the expression rates of males and females towards positive and negative emotions. The participants were made to read different stories and advised to react and give responses. It was found that positive emotions were expressed significantly by men compared to women. Similarly, negative emotions were expressed significantly by women compared to men.

This indicates that emotions like happiness, sadness and fear were prominently expressed by men. This kind of gender discrimination is more commonly reported. Faces that express emotions like threat enhance the resources of attention in a demanding manner. Processing of a given attention facilitates the influence of gender stereotypes. Since it was widely believed that men and women show specific emotions, there will be certain discrepancies where sadness and fear become more characteristic for women than men and vice versa.

Depending on the type of environmental condition and nature of item presented, the reaction of men and women may vary. Story telling or describing a particular incident of exciting nature may induce sudden happiness in both the sexes irrespective of gender sterotypism. It indicates that expression patterns of both Positive and negative emotions are subject to the type of environment.

It was reported that facial expressions posses characteristics that play role as sex markers that important for sex detection bias. This feature is also essential for forming the foundation for behaviors like affiliation and dominance. As such, the present findings are consistent with the previous reports that describe evolutionary link towards anger and happiness (Ursula et al., 2009).

This has supported an earlier study where facial expressions played vital role for communications between actors .According to that study, emotion and gender of actors was found to be significantly linked during interactions. Here, rate for happiness was high among both men and women.

Female actors were more flexible in making communication through faces for fear and sadness whereas males were flexible for expressions towards anger (Wallbott ,1988)

Hence these studies strongly indicate that the present study is in line with the earlier studies. More probably the selection of variables is a key factor in the present scenario.

But there sees to be certain inconsistencies due to limited studies in the relevant area.

The sample size can be considered as the limitation for the study. Selecting 17 participants may not furnish better insights o n the effect of variables. In addition with the low sample size it would be difficult to arrive to a concrete decision on statistical grounds. Thus , there is a need to increase the sample size for a more concrete result.

In order to further improve the study, a muti-environment study is essential. In the present case, the participants were picked from a mall. Emphasis should be give to colleges, universities, and film actors as described in a previous study.

The implication of such study would yield much information on gender sterotypism, a detailed understanding of emotional reactions towards positive and negative outcomes and a focus on the management of gender related stress.

References

Hutson- Comeaux Sarah L., & Kelly Janice R. (2002). Gender Stereotypes of Emotional

Reactions: How We Judge an Emotion as Valid. Sex Roles, 47 (1/2).

Ursula Hess,Reginald B. Adams JrKarl Grammer Robert E. Kleck. (2009).

Face gender and emotion expression: Are angry women more like men? Journal of Vision 9, 1–8

Wallbott Harald, G. (1988). Big Girls Don’t Frown, Big Boys Don’t Cry -Gender Differnces of Professional Actors in Communicating Emotin via Facial Expression. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 12.

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Gender and Emotional Response

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