William Atkins
Saturday, 05 December 2009 19:18
Science -
Biology
Page 1 of 2
A study by American, Canadian, and Austrian researchers has shown that it is easier to identify emotions of happiness and fear in the faces of women and easier to identify emotions of anger in men’s faces. However, it is much more difficult to identify an angry women.
The article “
Face gender and emotion expression: Are angry women more like men?” appears in the
Journal of Vision. (9(12):19, 1-8, http://journalofvision.org/9/12/19/, doi:10.1167/9.12.19)
Published on November 24, 2009, the research was performed by Ursula Hess (University of Quebec at Montreal, Canada), Reginald B. Adams Jr. (The Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A.), Karl Grammer (University of Vienna, U.S.A.) and Robert E. Klefck (Dartmouth College, U.S.A.).
The abstract to their paper states,
“Certain features of facial appearance perceptually resemble expressive cues related to facial displays of emotion.”
That is, they hypothesize that certain facial expressions, such as lowered eyebrows indicating anger, are more easily identified in the faces of men than they are in the faces of women.
They also hypothesize that an androgynous face (that is, neither male nor female in appearance) would be identified as a man more likely than as a woman when the facial expression of anger is added to it.
The researchers performed two experiments in which the participants were asked to identify the gender (sex) of faces.
They first asked participants to identify whether an androgynous face with (1) lowered eyebrows and tight lips—that is, looking angry—was a man or a woman and (2) smiles and raised eyebrows—that is, looking happy or fearful—was a man or a woman.
In the second experiment, they asked the participants to look at male and female faces that showed expressions of happiness, anger, fear, or sadness. They were also showed faces of men and women with no expression at all.
Page two concludes with the conclusions of the researchers.
