Children’s Gender–Emotion Stereotypes in the Relationship of Anger to Sadness and Fear

Abstract

Children's perceptions of the emotional reactions of same-and different-sex characters in stories containing ambiguous and unambiguous emotional contexts were examined. According to the Parallel-Constraint-Satisfaction Theory (Kunda and Thagard. Psychological Review, 103, 284-308, 1996), stereotypes are more likely to be utilized in ambiguous contexts, defined here as those likely to elicit multiple emotional responses. Seventy suburban U.S. preschoolers were read vignettes describing boys or girls in ambiguous or unambiguous emotion-inducing events and reported how the vignette characters were feeling. Results suggest that the perceptions of participants were more likely to reflect gender-emotion stereotypes (e.g. perceiving males as angry and females as sad) in ambiguous contexts than in unambiguous contexts. Results are discussed in terms of children's emerging understanding of genderemotion stereotypes.

Your Face Says It All: Closeness and Perception of Emotional Expressions Among Females

“…Expressions in the absence of contextual information are more ambiguous, thus it takes individuals longer to perceive these expressions. Our finding that ambiguity impacts emotion perception is consistent with the literature (Parmley & Cunningham, 2008). Additionally, vignette interacted with closeness for the accuracy variable such that the closeness advantage was only found when it was not paired with a vignette.…”

“…Additionally, vignette interacted with closeness for the accuracy variable such that the closeness advantage was only found when it was not paired with a vignette. Research suggests that individuals rely on preexisting knowledge or stereotypes when interpreting Downloaded by [New York University] at 20:13 15 June 2015 others' emotions in ambiguous situations to facilitate the emotion perception process (Hugenberg and Bodenhausen, 2003;Parmley & Cunningham, 2008). The present findings suggest that in ambiguous situations, individuals in close relationships use the nuances they learn about changes in their partner's expressions to facilitate the emotion perception process as well.…”

Crying in Middle Childhood: A Report on Gender Differences

“…Socialization of gender roles is to a great extent influenced by family processes. The majority of American parents still create different environments for sons and daughters and also interact differently with the two genders (Chaplin et al 2005; Garside and Klimes-Dougan 2002; Parmley and Cunningham 2008). There are nevertheless also considerable differences between families within cultures in this respect, with some families holding a more feministic, less traditional attitude (Blakemore and Hill 2008).…”

“…Since crying is strongly associated with feelings of helplessness and powerlessness (Frijda et al 1989), it can be argued that crying is typically associated with internalizing feelings rather than with feelings such as anger. Children in the USA are generally socialized in a way that discourages the expression of internalizing feelings in boys and encourages male achievement, control, and power (Garside and Klimes-Dougan 2002; Parmley and Cunningham 2008). Cross-culturally, girls show more internalizing feelings (operationalized as withdrawal, somatic complaints, anxiety and depression) than boys with increasing age, i.e.…”

The Social Costs and Benefits of Anger as a Function of Gender and Relationship Context

“…The stereotype that men are the more aggressive gender is prevalent in the US and many Western-European societies, and is often generalized to the emotion of anger (see e.g., Kelly and Hutson-Comeaux 1999;Plant et al 2000;Parmley and Cunningham 2008;Shields 1991). Thus, men are stereotypically perceived to express their anger more directly and in a more antagonistic way than do women (e.g., Brody 1993;Brody and Hall 2008;Fischer 1993;Shields 2002).…”