The DOI matches its Crossref record; 37 of the 37 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Gender Differences in Emotional Response: Inconsistency between Experience and Expressivity
Open accessAbstract
The present study investigated gender differences in both emotional experience and expressivity. Heart rate (HR) was recorded as an indicator of emotional experience while the participants watched 16 video clips that induced eight types of emotion (sadness, anger, horror, disgust, neutrality, amusement, surprise, and pleasure). We also asked the participants to report valence, arousal, and motivation as indicators of emotional expressivity. Overall, the results revealed gender differences in emotional experience and emotional expressivity. When watching videos that induced anger, amusement, and pleasure, men showed larger decreases in HR, whereas women reported higher levels of arousal. There was no gender difference in HR when the participants watched videos that induced horror and disgust, but women reported lower valence, higher arousal, and stronger avoidance motivation than did men. Finally, no gender difference was observed in sadness or surprise, although there was one exception-women reported higher arousal when watching videos that induced sadness. The findings suggest that, when watching videos that induce an emotional response, men often have more intense emotional experiences, whereas women have higher emotional expressivity, particularly for negative emotions. In addition, gender differences depend on the specific emotion type but not the valence.
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“Research has consistently shown that men and women exhibit different patterns of media consumption and varying emotional responses to distressing (media) content [196,197].”
From Impact of Media-Induced Uncertainty on Mental Health: Narrative-Based Perspective. (2025) · cites this paper as [196]
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Citations
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Shi, P., Yang, A., Zhao, Q., Chen, Z., Ren, X., & Dai, Q. (2021) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.589687 · Cited by 292
“Indeed, males reported less depression, even they experienced more intense emotions (92), indicating that they need greater symptom severity to ask for help.”
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“However, a more recent investigation (Deng et al., 2016) exploring gender differences in both emotional experience (measured by HR) and expressivity (valence, arousal, motivation), found that gender differences appear to depend on emotional valence.”
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“On a related topic, *Deng et al. (2016) urged claims about claims in gender differences in emotion processing to separate emotional expressivity (e.g. facial mimicry), where gender differences are consistently observed, from emotional experience, where the evidence for gender differences is less…”
Background
Metadata
- Authors
- Deng, Y., Chang, L., Yang, M., Huo, M., & Zhou, R.
- Affiliations
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- University of Macau (MO)
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Corresponding author
- Zhou, Renlai
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2016-06-30
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- e0158666
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4928818
- OpenAlex
- W2466307579
- Cited by
- 382
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 59 · 2022: 43 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 74 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 26.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Basic Research Program of China (2011CB505101)
- Shangshan funding
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Emotion and Mood Recognition
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- gender differences, emotional experience, emotional expressivity, heart rate, emotion induction, valence, arousal, avoidance motivation, sadness, anger, disgust, horror, amusements, pleasure, surprise
- MeSH terms
- Arousal, Emotions, Facial Expression, Female, Heart Rate, Humans, Male, Photic Stimulation, Sex Characteristics, Young Adult
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