New research from psychologists at St Andrews University, Scotland, suggests men find it more difficult to interpret female facial expressions than women.
Research participants were shown a selection of photographs of women wearing different expressions – anger, surprise, happiness, fear, and disgust. Men particularly struggled to detect women showing anger or disgust emotions. Women in the study were better able to recognise emotions and were more likely to mirror facial expressions.
Unfortunately most media coverage left the study description there. What it would have been more interesting to know is the specific tasks participants were set. For example, media reports didn’t mention if men were shown pictures of female emotions and men too. It may be that men struggle more to name female expressions, but find it easier to recognise and describe male emotions.
Some of the coverage also leapt to the conclusion this was an innate gender difference. Whilst infant studies suggest female children may well be better tuned in to recognising expressions and emotions, it’s also very clear from babyhood that parents and other adults reinforce and reward girls for noticing emotions and behaving empathically. Boys are often not encouraged to practice these skills – which could be one of the reasons for the results from this study.
Happily people can learn to read expressions more effectively, but we shouldn’t leave it there. Frequently, dating guides and media relationship features focus on body language as a means to ‘decode your partner’. Sadly many people are unskilled to do this, or the advice on ‘decoding’ is nonsense. Without learning to communicate your feelings, people will continue to struggle with work, family, friendship or romantic relationships.
So the good news about this study is that whether men or women can read emotions, we can all learn to describe how we feel and convey that. Meaning we won’t have to rely on guessing how others feel.
Read my lips
New research from psychologists at St Andrews University, Scotland, suggests men find it more difficult to interpret female facial expressions than women.
Research participants were shown a selection of photographs of women wearing different expressions – anger, surprise, happiness, fear, and disgust. Men particularly struggled to detect women showing anger or disgust emotions. Women in the study were better able to recognise emotions and were more likely to mirror facial expressions.
Unfortunately most media coverage left the study description there. What it would have been more interesting to know is the specific tasks participants were set. For example, media reports didn’t mention if men were shown pictures of female emotions and men too. It may be that men struggle more to name female expressions, but find it easier to recognise and describe male emotions.
Some of the coverage also leapt to the conclusion this was an innate gender difference. Whilst infant studies suggest female children may well be better tuned in to recognising expressions and emotions, it’s also very clear from babyhood that parents and other adults reinforce and reward girls for noticing emotions and behaving empathically. Boys are often not encouraged to practice these skills – which could be one of the reasons for the results from this study.
Happily people can learn to read expressions more effectively, but we shouldn’t leave it there. Frequently, dating guides and media relationship features focus on body language as a means to ‘decode your partner’. Sadly many people are unskilled to do this, or the advice on ‘decoding’ is nonsense. Without learning to communicate your feelings, people will continue to struggle with work, family, friendship or romantic relationships.
So the good news about this study is that whether men or women can read emotions, we can all learn to describe how we feel and convey that. Meaning we won’t have to rely on guessing how others feel.
They’ll be telling us.
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