The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Communication 237

more than men. Furthermore, sex differences

in gazing (female more than male) are typi-

cally larger when the situation evaluated is a

friendly one. Yet, in other situations, gazing

can convey a different message, in particu-

lar, a message related to status. A high-status

person, for example, may gaze intently at the

person to whom she or he is speaking. To

confuse matters even more, sex differences in

gazing do not generalize to all other cultures.

For example, in Japan, it appears women

make less eye contact than men, especially

during interactions with other women. Eye

contact here may convey dominance.

Interpersonal Sensitivity

Interpersonal sensitivity (sometimes referred to

asdecoding) is defined as correctly interpreting

and assessing others, including their nonverbal

behavior and their emotions. Females seem to

be more sensitive than males to nonverbal cues,

meaning they can more accurately interpret

the meaning of nonverbal behavior (Brody &

Hall, 2008; Rosip & Hall, 2004). Females are

better able to understand the meaning behind

nonverbal cues such as facial expression, vo-

cal intonation, and body position. This find-

ing seems to generalize to people in other

countries, such as Malaysia, Japan, Hungary,

Mexico, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Israel

(Hall et al., 2000). A meta-analytic review of the

literature showed that females are better than

males at interpreting facial expressions at all

age groups examined—infants, children, and

adolescents (McClure, 2000). Furthermore, the

sex of the target does not make a difference in

decoding accuracy; that is, females are more ac-

curate than males in decoding both women’s

and men’s emotions. The female advantage is

stronger for nonverbal facial behavior than for

nonverbal body movements or auditory cues.

Females are also more accurate in recalling

information about other people, regardless of

whether the information is female or male ste-

reotypic (Hall & Mast, 2008).

One exception to females’ ability to accu-

rately interpret other’s feelings and behavior is

deception. Females are not more accurate than

males at detecting deception unless language

is involved, in which case women are better

than men at detecting deception (Forrest &

Feldman, 2000). If females’ decoding ability

is related to their orientation toward relation-

ships, it is not a surprise that females are not as

good as males at detecting deception. Detect-

ing deception would not necessarily foster

relationship development, whereas accurately

interpreting another’s emotions certainly

would.

Encoding

The counterpart to understanding another’s

emotions is the ability to convey one’s own

emotions accurately. Encoding reflects the

capacity to convey emotions without inten-

tionally doing so. Because emotional expres-

siveness is central to the female gender role,

it is not surprising that women are better at

encoding than men (Hall et al., 2000). That is,

others are better able to judge the emotions of

a woman than of a man. Again, the difference

is larger when judging facial expressions than

vocal cues. It is not clear whether a sex differ-

ence in encoding occurs among children.

Touching

It is difficult to make a generalization about

sex comparisons in touch because there are

so many moderator variables, including the

nature of the touch and the context in which

it occurs. The sex composition of the dyad

is a strong determinant of touch. In an ob-

servational study of touch across a variety

of settings, women were significantly more

likely than men to receive touching, and there

was a trend for men to be more likely than

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