Women seen as happy and men as angry despite real emotions
"The study led by Dr Sebastian Korb found that how we understand the emotional expression of a face or voice is heavily influenced by perceived sex, and vice versa.
The paper published in the journal Emotion reveals that both men and women subconsciously make the same mistakes.
Dr Korb, from the Department of Psychology, hopes the research will be expanded and could help make us more aware of our built-in biases.
He said: "This study shows how important it is not to rely too much on your first impressions, as they can easily be wrong.
"Next time you find yourself attributing happiness or sadness to a woman, be aware of your bias and possible misinterpretation.””
My Takeaways From This Article
Many of us have innate biases that cause us to assume certain sex and genders are more predisposed to feel a certain type of way. In this study it was shown that people generally assume males to be more angry and females to be more sad. It may seem harmless but this bias can have deep-rooted negative effects down the line.
As with the emotional bias between genders and sex show, males are expected to be more aggressive and angry, in addition of suppressing feelings of sadness and other emotions when not needed. Females on the other hand are expected to be more emotional, express sadness and discouraged from displaying signs of anger. It’s a dangerous stereotype and it hurts affected parties equally.
It’s time to realize that all genders and sexes can equally experience all sorts of emotions. It’s also time to understand that expression of emotions should be equal for everyone regardless.
Full article is here!
Are there any sex/gender-specific biases about emotional experience that you personally find issue with?
#Gender #Biases #Emotion
@sunnyWriting4806 I find an issue with the fact that men are taught from a young age to not cry. Little girls are comforted when they cry, but little boys are told to stop or grow up. It teaches these men that they aren't allowed to express their feelings and I really do believe that this increases feeling of loneliness and depression as men get older. We need to teach our boys that it's okay to feel their feelings and be sad sometimes!
@fruityPond7887
Oh no definitely. Men who can't express their emotions in safe and comfortable ways are more prone to deal with emotional issues and difficulties throughout life. I think these things that society tells us how to express emotion are damaging in the long run.
@sunnyWriting4806 You're correct! When these boys grow up, they don't know how to properly express themselves and it can lead to trouble with multiple aspects of their lives.
Yes, I agree with all parts of this. A girl told me about how she got mad at someone for saying a slur, and I was happy for some reason. Also, the pressure to hide emotions is very real, but I am used to it. The worst one is that men are angry people. I decided that I don’t like being angry years ago. I would storm off to my room and then calm down and get BORED. I didn’t want to come out though because then one of my emotions I expressed without trouble would seem insignificant. Men don’t always have to be angry, but enough men are that it’s normalized. Women are scared of an angry man and men are scared of women who laugh at them. I don’t want to be part of that.
@sunnyWriting4806
Well said - everyone should be able to express their emotions equally. I am glad that we can reduce the impact of biases by being aware of them. Thank you for posting this article and bringing this issue to our awareness!
