BRIEF REPORTS Gender Differences in Judgments of Multiple Emotions From Facial Expressions

The authors tested gender differences in emotion judgments by utilizing a new judgment task (Studies 1 and 2) and presenting stimuli at the edge of conscious awareness (Study 2). Women were more accurate than men even under conditions of minimal stimulus information. Women’s ratings were more variable across scales, and they rated correct target emotions higher than did men. Women’s greater accuracy in judging the emotional meanings of nonverbal cues is well established (Hall, 1978, 1984; Hall, Carter, & Horgan, 2000). The over-all gender difference corresponds to a Cohen’s d (Co-hen, 1988) of about.40 and a point-biserial correla-tion (r) of about.20. The tasks used in this literature encompass wide variation in stimuli and response op-tions such as whether observers are asked to identify emotions, situations, or interpersonal relationship