The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

250 Chapter 7

stronger relations than the respondent’s sex.

Femininity or communion, specifically, has

been associated with emotional expression

(Brody & Hall, 1993). Two studies have asso-

ciated androgyny with emotional expression.

In a study that compared androgynous, mas-

culine, and feminine persons, androgynous

persons were found to be more emotionally

expressive than masculine persons, and fem-

inine persons fell between the two groups

(Kring & Gordon, 1998). The relation of an-

drogyny to the expression of such a variety of

emotions may have to do with the fact that

androgyny incorporates both femininity and

masculinity, which are each linked to the ex-

pression of different emotions: Androgyny

includes femininity, which is associated with

expressions of love, happiness, and sadness,

along with masculinity, which is associated

with expressions of anger and hate.

Physiological Measures of Emotion

Given the limitations of self-report meth-

ods of measuring emotion, we might hope

that physiological methods would provide a

more definitive answer to the issue of sex dif-

ferences in emotions. Unlike the self-report

and observational research, physiological

studies either show that men are more physi-

ologically reactive to emotion or that there

are no sex differences in physiological reac-

tivity (Brody & Hall, 2008). Unfortunately,

physiological indicators of emotionality are

controversial. Researchers find it difficult to

agree on which physiological measure best

taps emotion: heart rate, blood pressure, or

galvanic skin response? Even within a given

physiological measure, findings are inconsis-

tent across studies. When multiple measures

of physiological reactivity are used, findings

within a study are often inconsistent across

measures. One technique that has been ap-

plied to the study of emotion is neuroimag-

ing. A meta-analytic review of neuroimaging

studies did not find more frequent activation

in one sex compared to another in response

to emotion but did show that different re-

gions of the brain are activated in women

and men (Wager et al., 2003). For example,

one study showed that when negative emo-

tions were induced in men and women via

a noxious odor, the more cognitive-related

areas were activated in men (e.g., prefrontal

cortex) and the more emotion-related areas

were activated in women (e.g., amygdala;

Koch et al., 2007).

How do we reconcile the different con-

clusions reached by self-report and physi-

ological data? One answer is that women

are more outwardly expressive and men

are more internally reactive to emotional

stimuli. This idea was supported by a study

in which college students viewed a film de-

picting one of three emotions (sadness, fear,

happiness; Kring & Gordon, 1998). There

were no sex differences in the self-report

of an emotion. However, videotaped docu-

mentation showed that women were more

emotionally expressive than men, and physi-

ological measures evidenced that men were

DO GENDER 7.4

Perception of Emotion

in Boys and Girls

Videotape an infant or child playing.

Make sure the sex of the child is not obvi-

ous. Tell 10 people the child is female and

10 people the child is male. Ask them to

rate how emotional the child is, how ex-

pressive the child is, and what emotion the

child is experiencing. Does the sex of the

child influence these reports?

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