Different Cultures and Emotions

Emotion
2004, Vol. 4, No. 1, 87–94

Copyright 2004 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
1528-3542/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.4.1.87

BRIEF REPORTS

Gender and Culture Differences in Emotion
Agneta H. Fischer,
Patricia M. Rodriguez Mosquera, and
Annelies E. M. van Vianen

Antony S. R. Manstead
University of Cambridge

University of Amsterdam
In this article, the authors report a secondary analysis on a cross-cultural dataset on gender differences in 6 emotions, collected in 37 countries all over the world. The aim was to test the universality of the gender-specific pattern found in studies with
Western respondents, namely that men report more powerful emotions (e.g., anger), whereas women report more powerless emotions (e.g., sadness, fear). The authors expected the strength of these gender differences to depend on women’s status and roles in their respective countries, as operationalized by the Gender Empowerment
Measure (GEM; United Nations Development Programme Human Development
Report 2002). Overall, the gender-specific pattern of women reporting to experience and express more powerless emotions and men more powerful emotions was replicated, and only some interactions with the GEM were found.

Do men and women live different emotional lives, and do they experience and express their emotions in different ways, or with different frequency or intensity? To date, many studies on gender differences in emotion have been conducted to answer this question, and several reviews of this research have been undertaken (e.g., Brody & Hall, 1993; Fischer, 1993, 2000;
Manstead, 1992; Shields, 1991, 2000). The authors of these reviews generally have concluded that there are many inconsistencies in the findings resulting from methodological problems (e.g., Feldman Barrett,

1997; LaFrance & Banaji, 1992; Robinson, Johnson,
& Shields, 1998; Shields, 2000); yet, a genderspecific pattern in emotional responding can be found.

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