460 ChapTER 13 Emotion, Stress, and Health
female FBI agent has to be as emotionally strong
and controlled as a male agent.
Perhaps the strongest situational constraint
on emotional expression is the status of the par
ticipants (Kenny et al., 2010; Snodgrass, 1992). A
man is as likely as a woman to control his temper
when the target of anger is someone with higher
status or power; few people will readily sound off
at a professor, police officer, or employer. As for
empathy in judging what other people are feel
ing—supposedly a female skill—a series of exper
iments found that workingclass people of both
sexes are more skilled than upperclass people at
judging emotional expressions in others and read
ing the emotions of strangers in job interviews.
Workingclass women and men have a greater
interest in being able to read the nonverbal cues
of those who have higher status and more power
than they (Kraus, Côté, & Keltner, 2010).
Finally, keep in mind that even when gender
differences exist in one culture, that doesn’t mean
they are found universally. Italian, French, Spanish,
and Middle Eastern men and women can have
entire conversations using highly expressive hand
gestures and facial expressions. In contrast, in Asian
cultures, both sexes are taught to control emotional
expression (Matsumoto, 1996; Mesquita & Frijda,
1992). Israeli and Italian men are more likely than
women to mask feelings of sadness, but British,
Spanish, Swiss, and German men are less likely than
their female counterparts to inhibit this emotion
(Wallbott, RicciBitti, & BänningerHuber, 1986).
In sum, the answer to “Which sex is more
emotional?” is sometimes men, sometimes women,
and sometimes neither, depending on the circum
stances and their culture—and how we define
“emotional.”
Explore the Concept How do You deal With
Your Emotions? at MyPsychLabwoman”) or behave calmly (and risk being seen as
“cold and unemotional—unwomanly”)?
Conversely, women who don’t smile when
others expect them to are often disliked, even if
they are actually smiling as often as men would.
This may be why North American women, on
average, smile more than men do, gaze at their
listeners more, have more emotionally expressive
faces, use more expressive hand and body move
ments, and touch others more (DePaulo, 1992;
Kring & Gordon, 1998). Women smile more than
men not just to convey happiness but also to pac
ify others, convey deference to someone of higher
status, or smooth over conflicts (Hess, Adams, &
Kleck, 2005; LaFrance, 2011; Shields, 2005).
Women also talk about their emotions more
than men do, even when both sexes feel those
emotions. Women are far more likely than men
to cry and to acknowledge emotions that reveal
vulnerability and weakness, such as “hurt feelings,”
fear, sadness, loneliness, shame, and guilt, and this
sex difference begins in childhood (Chaplin &
Aldao, 2012; Grossman & Wood, 1993; Timmers,
Fischer, & Manstead, 1998). In contrast, boys
and men express only one emotion more freely
than women do: anger toward strangers, espe
cially other men. Otherwise, men are expected to
control and mask negative feelings. When they
are worried or afraid, they are more likely than
women to use vague terms, saying that they feel
moody, frustrated, or on edge (Fehr et al., 1999).
Despite these average differences, the influ
ence of a particular situation often overrides gen
der rules. You won’t find many gender differences
in emotional expressiveness at a football game or
the World Series! Further, both sexes do similar
emotion work when the situation or job requires
it. A male flight attendant has to smile with pas
sengers as much as a female attendant does, and aBoth sexes feel emotionally attached to friends, but in many cultures they learn to express their affections differently.
A common pattern is that girls tend to prefer “face-to-face” friendships based on shared feelings; boys tend to prefer
“side-by-side” friendships based on shared activities.