Reactions to men and women expressing sadness, joy, and anger

The present investigation examined how the sex of participants (male or female), and the emotion expressed (sadness, joy, or anger) by a hypothetical character (male or female) affected the participants' reactions to the character. Ratings were obtained from 66 male and 66 female college students on: 1) causal attributions, 2) behavior-gender congruence, 3) adjustment in school work and friendships, 4) adjustment in sexuality and in handling emotional needs, and 5) personal acceptance as acquaintance, co-worker, and close friend. It was anticipated that male characters expressing sadness or joy would receive greater negative evaluations_ than their female counterparts, particularly from female raters. Similar reactions were predicted for male and female characters expressing anger. A multivariate analysis of variance was perfcrmed on the data, while eight planed comparisons tested the experimental hypotheses using Duari's procedure. Post-hoc analyses utilized Tukey's procedure.The findings revealed that for each emotion expressed there were no significant differences in ratings either due to participant, or character sex, with one exception. The expression of joy was judged by all subjects as more inappropriate for the male than the female character. Post-hoc analyses indicated the expressions of sadness and joy as more appropriate than the expression of anger, leading to lower acceptance of the latter character. The characters expressing sadness were also seen as more adjusted in school work and friendships than either the characters expressing joy or anger. The validity and generalizability of these findings were discussed in light of previous research.Recommendations for future investigations in this area include the use of mixed-sex character dyads and nonprivate interaction contexts, consideration of how genderincongruent behaviors are defined, and utilization of unobtrusive and behavioral measures along with attitudinal ones.Thesis (Ph. D.