The influence of the sex of the expresser was examined in relation to correct perception of facial expressions by the receiver. Two hundred and twenty-seven college students (114 women, 103 men) judged seven facial expressions, anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, by choosing the appropriate emotion name from a list of six Czech options, on men and women's faces. No significant difference was found between rates of correct perception of facial expressions on the faces of women and on the faces of men. The facial expression of fear was better recognized on the man's face than on the woman's face in this set of subjects. The results do not support the hypothesis of more accurate recognition of facial expressions on women's faces than on men's faces.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AthenstaedtU.HaasE.SchwabS. (2004) Gender role self-concept and gender-typed communication behavior in mixed-sex and same-sex dyads. Sex Roles, 50, 37–52.
2.
BalconiM. (2005) AN ERP study on facial expression of emotion: Comparison of linguistic and visual semantic decoding. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 100, 129–134.
3.
BiehlM.MatsumotoD.EkmanP.HearnV.HeiderK.KudohT.TonV. (1997) Matsumoto and Ekman's Japanese and Caucasian facial expressions of emotions (JACFEE): Reliability data and cross-national differences. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 21, 3–21.
4.
BuckR.MillerR.CaulW. (1974) Sex, personality, and physiological variables in the communication of affect via facial expression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 587–596.
5.
DuhaneyA.McKelvieS. (1993) Gender differences in accuracy of identification and rated intensity of facial expressions. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 76, 716–718.
6.
EkmanP.FriesenW. (1978) Facial Action Coding System: A technique for the measurement of facial movement. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
7.
ErwinR.GurR.GurR.SkolnickB.Mawhinney-HeeM.SmailisJ. (1992) Facial emotion discrimination: I. Task construction and behavioral findings in normal subjects. Psychiatry Research, 42, 231–240.
8.
GalloisC.CallanV. (1986) Decoding emotional messages: Influence of ethnicity, sex, message type, and channel. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 755–762.
9.
GitterA.BlackH.MostofskyD. (1972) Race and sex in the communication of emotion. Journal of Social Psychology, 88, 273–276.
10.
GoosL.SilvermanI. (2002) Sex related factors in the perception of threatening facial expressions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 26, 27–41.
11.
GrossJ.JohnO. (1998) Mapping the domain of expressivity: Multimethod evidence for hierarchical model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 14, 170–191.
12.
GrossJ.JohnO.RichardsJ. (2000) The dissociation of emotion expression from emotion experience: A personality perspective. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 712–726.
13.
HallJ. (1984) Nonverbal sex differences: Communication accuracy and expressive style. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univer. Press.
14.
HallJ.CarterJ.HorganT. G. (2000) Gender differences in nonverbal communication of emotion. In FisherA. (Ed.), Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives. Paris: Cambridge Univer. Press. Pp. 97–117.
15.
HessU.BlairyS.KleckR. (2000) The influence of facial emotion displays, gender, and ethnicity on judgments of dominance and affiliation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24, 265–283.
16.
KringA.GordonA. (1998) Sex differences in emotion: Expression, experience, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 686–703.
17.
LentiC.GiacobbeA.PegnaC. (2000) Recognition of emotional facial expressions in depressed children and adolescents. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 91, 227–236.
18.
RotterN.RotterG. (1988) Sex differences in the encoding and decoding of negative facial emotions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 12, 139–148.
19.
ShieldsS. (1991) Gender in the psychology of emotion: A selective research review. In StrongmanK. (Ed.), International review of studies on emotion. Chichester, UK: Wiley. Pp. 227–245.
20.
StannersR.ByrdD.GabrielR. (1985) The time it takes to identify facial expressions: Effects of age, gender of subject, sex of sender, and type of expression. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 9, 201–213.
21.
TrnkaR. (2006) Differences in the meanings of verbal expressions of emotions and their role in perception and categorization of nonverbal signals. In SiklR.SpokD.HellerD.LukavskyJ.VoborilD. (Eds.), Cognition 2006. Brno: Psychological Division of the Czech Academy of Science. Pp. 224–228.
22.
WagnerH. (1990) The spontaneous facial expression of differential positive and negative emotions. Motivation and Emotion, 14, 27–43.
23.
WagnerH.MacDonaldC.MansteadA. (1986) Communication of individual emotions by spontaneous facial expressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 737–743.
24.
WallbottH.SchererK. (1986) Cues and channels in emotion recognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 690–699.
25.
YrizarryN.MatsumotoD.CohnC. (1998) American-Japanese differences in multiscalar intensity ratings of universal facial expressions of emotion. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 315–327.
26.
ZuckermanM.HallJ.DeFrankR.RosenthalR. (1976) Encoding and decoding of spontaneous and posed facial expressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 966–977.
27.
ZuckermanM.LipetsM.KoivumakiJ.RosenthalR. (1975) Encoding and decoding nonverbal cues of emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 1068–1076.
