248 Chapter 7that women report greater emotion than
men. Women say that they experience emo-
tions more intensely than men and that they
let emotions influence their decisions (van
Middendorp et al., 2005). When shown emo-
tionally arousing stimuli in the laboratory,
women report more negative emotion than
men (Gard & Kring, 2007; Moore, 2007). In
a nationally representative sample, partici-
pants were asked how often they felt a variety
of emotions (Simon & Nath, 2004). Although
there was no sex difference in the frequency
of emotions experienced, men were more
likely than women to report positive emo-
tions and women were more likely than men
to report negative emotions. The latter sex
difference disappeared when income was
statistically controlled, implying that the rea-
son women experience more negative emo-
tions than men is due to their lower status.One concern about research showing sex
differences in the frequency or amount of emo-
tion is that these reports are susceptible to a re-
call bias (Larson & Pleck, 1999). Much of the
data that show women experience more emo-
tion than men come from self-report studies
where women and men recall their emotions
over a period of time. Possibly women are sim-
ply better than men at recalling their emotions.
To address this issue, Larson and Pleck (1999)
had married couples carry electronic pagers
and beeped them periodically throughout the
day so they could report their current emo-
tional state. These online reports revealed that
men and women experience similar emotions.
The frequencies of both positive and nega-
tive emotions are shown in Figure 7.10. Other
studies have used this same methodology with
college students and adults and confirmed the
finding (Larson & Pleck, 1999).FIGURE 7.10 Men and women report similar frequencies of both positive
and negative emotions throughout the day.
Source: Larson and Pleck (1999).403020100
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Negative Positive–2 –1 0Emotional States123Percentage of Self-ReportsMenWomenM07_HELG0185_04_SE_C07.indd 248 6/21/11 8:11 AM