Sex, personality, and physiological variables in the communication of affect via facial expression.

Abstract

Senders" viewed 25 emotionally loaded color slides. Their facial expressions were observed via a hidden television camera by "observers" who made judgments about the nature of each slide and the sender's reaction to it. A total of 64 undergraduates were arranged in eight pairings each of females sending to male observers, females sending to females, males sending to males, and males sending to females. Statistically significant communication was demonstrated, with females being more accurate senders than males. More accurate senders tended to show a smaller skin conductance and heart rale response to the slides and a more "personal" verbal report of their emotional reaction to the slides. Several personality measures were related to communication accuracy and physiological responding. * Internalizer versus externalizer, * p < .10. ** p < .05. *** p < .01.

Sex differences in emotion: Expression, experience, and physiology.

“…Rather, women were more expressive than men across all films and did not differ from men in their reports of experienced emotion on any of the films. Although women were more expressive than men, this expressivity advantage is not entirely consistent with the internalizer-externalizer framework proposed by Buck and colleagues (Buck et al, 1974;Buck et al, 1972). Rather, only a subset of women fit into the externalizer category; a comparable number of women can be classified as generalizes or high responders.…”

“…Buck and colleagues (Buck et al, 1974;Buck et al, 1972) presented data showing that women tended to be more accurate in their communication accuracy (i.e., facial expression) but less electrodermally reactive (externalizers); whereas, men tended to be less accurate in communication accuracy and more electrodermally reactive (internalizers). To investigate this distinction in the present study, the mean of expressive behavior and the mean of skin conductance reactivity across all films were computed.…”

“…One hypothesis (Buck et al, 1974;Buck et al, 1972) holds that women tend to be externalizers in that their display of emotion tends to be primarily in the expressive domain. By contrast, men tend to be internalizers in that their display of emotion is manifested primarily via the psychophysiological domain.…”

“…Buck and colleagues (Buck et al, 1974;Buck et al, 1972) found that women, who were more expressive, tended to be less psychophysiologically responsive (labeled externalizers) and men, who were less expressive, tended to be more psychophysiologically responsive (labeled internalizers). Other studies, however, have found sex differences in the relationship between physiological measures and other emotion domains.…”

“…That is, a number of studies have found women to be more expressive than men using a variety of expression measures, such as EMG (e.g., Greenwald, Cook, & Lang, 1989;Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993;Schwartz, Brown, & Ahem, 1980), ratings of communication accuracy (e.g., Buck, Baron, Goodman, & Shapiro, 1980;Buck, Miller, & Caul, 1974;Buck, Savin, Miller, & Caul, 1972;Fujita, Harper, & Wiens, 1980;Rotter & Rotter, 1988;Wagner, Buck, & Winterbotham, 1993;Wagner, MacDonald, & Manstead, 1986;Zuckerman, Lipets, Hall Koivumaki, & Rosenthal, 1975), self-report of expression (e.g., Allen & Haccoun, 1976;Balswick & Avertt, 1977;Gross & John, 1995;Kring et al, 1994), and ratings of a variety of nonverbal behaviors such as smiling and gesturing (e.g., Barr & Kleck, 1995;Frances, 1979;Halberstadt, Hayes, & Pike, 1988;Notarious & Johnson, 1982;Ragan, 1982;Riggio & Friedman, 1986). Although fairly rare, some studies have failed to find sex differences in expressiveness (e.g., Cupchik & Poulos, 1984;Fridlund, 1990;Lanzetta, Cartwright-Smith, & Kleck, 1976;Vrana, 1993;Wagner, 1990;Zuckerman, Hall, DeFrank, & Rosenthal, 1976).…”