CULTURE, GENDER AND THE RECOGNITION OF THE BASIC EMOTIONS
Open accessAbstract
Though gender differences in the encoding and decoding of emotions have been found and replicated several times (Hall, Carter, & Horgan, 2000; Fischer & Manstead, 2000), the interaction between cultural models and gender stereotypes is not as well understood. In the present WWW-Study 42,638 participants from South America, North America, Southern Europe, and Central Europe had to recognize 28 pictures of the basic emotions. Overall, women had higher recognition accuracy than men. Nevertheless, there was a substantial interaction between the effects of culture and gender. In contrast to the assumption that gender differences should diminish in countries with less inequality with respect to gender, the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) correlated positively with gender differences.
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Considering old and new analyses together, females are more proficient than males in recognizing emotions, with SMDs of 0.22-0.30.
“Considering the results from both the old analyses and new analyses together, there were sex differences indicating that females relative to males are more proficient in recognizing emotions (SMDs = 0.22–0.30; Merten, 2005; Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Merten, 2005
For emotion recognition, sex differences favoring females are larger in countries with higher living conditions, but the evidence is weak.
“for Emotion recognition, the studies in the old analyses and new analyses (Merten, 2005; Thompson & Voyer, 2014) indicated that the sex differences favoring females are larger in countries with higher living conditions, but the evidence is weak.”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Merten, 2005
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Sorted by citations
Sex differences in the ability to recognise non-verbal displays of emotion: A meta-analysis
Thompson, A. E., & Voyer, D. (2014) · Cognition and Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699931.2013.875889 · Cited by 476 · see citing works
Gender, Emotion, and Socialization
Brody, L. R., & Hall, J. A. (2010) · Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology · doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-1465-1_21 · Cited by 138 · see citing works
A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox
Herlitz, A., Hönig, I., Hedebrant, K., & Asperholm, M. (2025) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/17456916231202685 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
“Finally, for Emotion recognition, the studies in the old analyses and new analyses (Merten, 2005; Thompson & Voyer, 2014) indicated that the sex differences favoring females are larger in countries with higher living conditions, but the evidence is weak.”
Influential
- Authors
- MERTEN, J.
- Affiliations
- Saarland University (DE)
- Corresponding author
- MERTEN, Jörg
- Venue
- PSYCHOLOGIA
- Publisher
- Psychologia Society
- Published
- 2005
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 306-316
- ISSN
- 0033-2852 (ISSN-L)
- 1347-5916
- OpenAlex
- W2091799077
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 5 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 1.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- PSYCHOLOGIA (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Keywords
- basic emotions, emotion recognition, gender differences, cultural differences, gender stereotypes, Gender Empowerment Measure, gender inequality, cross-cultural comparison
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