Gender and Age Stereotypes of Emotionality

Abstract

This study examined the content of adults' stereotypes about sex differences in both the experience and the expression of emotions and investigated how these beliefs vary with the age of the target person. Four hundred college students (200 men and 200 women) judged the frequency with which they believed males or females in one of five age groups (infants, preschoolers, elementary schoolers, adolescents, and adults) typically feel and express 25 different emotions. It was found that adults' gender-emotion stereotypes held for both basic and nonbasic emotions and appear to be based on a deficit model of male emotional expressiveness (i.e., a belief that males do not express the emotions they feel). Moreover, these beliefs about sex differences in emotionality refer primarily to adolescents and adults. It was concluded that gender-emotion stereotypes are complex and that there may be an age-of-target bias in the evaluation of others' emotions.