Available via license: CC BY 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Gender Differences in Emotional Response:
Inconsistency between Experience and
Expressivity
Yaling Deng
1,2,3
, Lei Chang
4
, Meng Yang
3
, Meng Huo
5
, Renlai Zhou
1,2,3
*
1State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China,
2Department of Psychology, School of Social and Behavior Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China,
3Research Center of Emotion Regulation, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, 4Department of
Psychology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau S.A.R., China, 5Department of Human Development and
Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
*rlzhou@nju.edu.cn
Abstract
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 expressiv-
ity. 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 emo-
tional 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.
Introduction
A common stereotype in both Western and Eastern cultures suggests that women are more
emotional than men, particularly when responding to negative emotions [1]. Despite substan-
tial efforts in gender differences in emotional responses over the past several decades, no con-
sensus as to whether women are more emotional than men has been reached. Gard et al. [1]
stated that researchers should consider both emotional experience and emotional expressivity
when investigating gender differences in emotional responses. Emotional experience refers
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 1/12
a11111
OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Deng Y, Chang L, Yang M, Huo M, Zhou R
(2016) Gender Differences in Emotional Response:
Inconsistency between Experience and Expressivity.
PLoS ONE 11(6): e0158666. doi:10.1371/journal.
pone.0158666
Editor: Andreas B Eder, University of Würzburg,
GERMANY
Received: November 18, 2015
Accepted: June 20, 2016
Published: June 30, 2016
Copyright: © 2016 Deng et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original author and source are
credited.
Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are
within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Funding: The work was supported by the National
Basic Research Program of China (No.
2011CB505101) and the Key Project of Philosophy
and Social Science Research in Colleges and
Universities in Jiangsu (2015ZSJDXM001) to
Professor Renlai Zhou, as well as the Shangshan
funding. The funders had no role in study design,
data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or
preparation of the manuscript.
primarily to an individual's physiological arousal evoked by external stimuli, and emotional
expressivity is the external expression of subjective experience. Kret et al. [2] agreed with this
notion and further noted the importance of addressing specific types of emotion when investi-
gating gender differences in emotional responses. Therefore, the present study investigated
gender differences in both emotional experience and emotional expressivity and considered
eight emotion types.
It remains unclear whether gender differences exist in emotional experience. Numerous
studies have shown that, compared with men, women usually experience more frequent and
stronger negative emotions [3,4]. This may explain why more women are more prone to mood
disorders [4–7]. Gohier et al. [8] adopted a priming paradigm and found that negative stimuli
reduce the priming effects on women. They explained that women are more sensitive to nega-
tive stimuli, and this heightened sensitivity interferes with their processing of negative stimuli.
Electrophysiological studies have shown that women exhibit greater galvanic skin response
and an elevated heart rate (HR) when watching movies that induce feelings of sadness, and
their HR is also elevated in response to movies that induce feelings of disgust [3]. Bradley et al.
studied startle reflex reactions and revealed that women exhibit a stronger response to negative
stimuli [4]. However, an increasing number of studies have shown that men exhibit more
intense emotional reactions, particularly to stimuli that are perceived to be threatening [2]or
erotic [9].
In addition, many studies have suggested there are no gender differences in emotional expe-
rience [6,10,11]. Electrophysiological studies have shown that HR is lowere when people view
emotion-inducing pictures, but this variance in HR does not differ between genders [10]. The
same finding has been reported by studies investigating emotional responses to movies [11].
Another two studies on startle reflex reactions have found that no gender differences exist
when the participants watched negative stimuli [6,12]. Similarly, Fischer and Manstead [13]
stated that despite the large number of studies that have confirmed gender differences in emo-
tional experience, these differences were smaller than expected, with almost no differences
being reflected in the observed behaviors of participants.
Regarding gender differences in emotional expressivity, no consensus has been reached.
Many studies have used subjective evaluations as indicators of emotional expressivity, fingding
that women often report a more intense emotional response regardless of valence [7,14–16].
For example, one study found that, compared with men, women rated negative stimuli with
higher arousal and rated neutral stimuli more positively [17]. Other studies have also shown
that women rated dynamic anger and pleasure emotions as more intense than static emotions,
but men rated only anger as more intense [18]. Furthermore, a series of results indicated that
compared to men, women had a greater degree of differentiation in emotional expressivity on
both positive and negative emotions [1]. However, several studies have also shown that there
were no gender differences existed in subjective evaluations when the participants viewed pic-
tures [19], faces [20], or movies [11] that induced emotional responses.
In summary, gender differences in emotional responses remain unclear. We considered two
primary reasons for this. First, studies have confused the two concepts of emotional experience
and emotional expressivity when investigating emotional responses. Some researchers have
considered emotional experience as an indicator of emotional response, whereas others have
considered emotional expressivity to be the indicator. However, emotional responses are multi-
channel and multisystem phenomena including physiological responses, subjective feelings,
and behavior. The study of emotional responses should be based on the same reaction system
(automatic versus reflective) to make a direct comparison [21]. Physiological responses and
subjective evaluations belong to different reaction systems, namely the automatic and reflective
systems, respectively [21]. The present study clearly distinguished the two aspects of emotional
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 2/12
Competing Interests: The authors have declared
that no competing interests exist.
responses. The results of physiological reactions were considered indicators of emotional expe-
rience, whereas the results of subjective evaluations were considered indicators of emotional
expressivity. We examined the gender differences in emotional responses, including both emo-
tional experience and emotional expressivity. Second, some previous studies have considered
the valence (positive, negative, neutral) of emotions, whereas others have specified several
types of emotion, rending it difficult to directly compare the findings of such studies. Emo-
tional content can provide more crucial information than valence can [11]. An increasing
number of researchers believe that gender differences should depend on the specific type of
emotion [2]. Thus, analyzing each specific type of emotion separately is imperative.
The present study investigated gender differences in emotional responses in different types
of emotion including both emotional experience (by using objective physiological indicators)
and emotional expressivity (by using a subjective report). We hypothesized that gender differ-
ences exist in emotional experience and emotional expressivity. We also hypothesized that gen-
der differences in emotional experience and emotional expressivity may depend on specific
emotions but not valence.
Methods
Ethics
The experimental procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board of the State Key
Laboratory of Cognitive Neurosciences and Learning of Beijing Normal University. All the par-
ticipants signed an informed consent before participating.
Participants
We recruited volunteers at Beijing Normal University through advertisements. Given that peo-
ple with depression and alexithymia cannot accurately express their emotions or complete the
emotion-elicited experiment [22], we used the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) [23] and
Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) [24] to screen only those who did not show depressive
tendencies (BDI4 points) and were able to express their emotional feelings (TAS-2066
points). A total of 110 volunteers agreed to participate in this study, but only 83 were screened
in based on the inclusion criteria. We further excluded four participants with incomplete data
because of mechanical failure. The final sample comprised 79 (31 men, 48 women; M
age
=
20.89 years) participants. They were all healthy and right-handed, and their vision was normal
or corrected normal.
Material
For effective emotion induction, the current study used video clips that induced emotional
responses [3]. The selected types of emotion were categorized according to Gross [25]: sadness,
anger, horror, disgust, neutrality, surprise, amusement, and pleasure. For each emotion type,
two video clips that were between 60 and 245 seconds in length were selected. A previous study
has found that these lengths provided sufficient time for recording physiological responses
[26].
Recording
In the present study, we measured emotional responses with both subjective and objective mea-
sures. We used the paper version of the Self-Assessment Manikin [27] for the participants to
rate the valence, arousal and motivation, including their ratings of (1) how happy or unhappy
they were, (2) how calm or aroused they were, and (3) their desire to approach or avoid the
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 3/12
scenes in the video clips. A 9-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all)to9(very much) was
used. We selected Heart Rate (HR) as the physiological response because it is currently the
most common autonomic nervous system marker of emotional processing [28]. The HR was
collected on a BIOPAC MP150 system with the AcqKnowledge 4.0 (BIOPAC Systems Inc).
HR was assessed using a three-lead ECG, with a lead II configuration and analyzed offline
using AcqKnowledge 4.0 software (BIOPAC Systems Inc).
Procedure
The participants watched the video clips in a room under appropriate lighting condition.
They were seated individually and directly in front of the screen. The video clips were dis-
played on a 14-inch computer screen. Four experimenters, who were trained psychology grad-
uate students at Beijing Normal University, described to the participants that the study
purpose was to learn more about emotions. The participants were informed that they should
watch the videos carefully, but could look away or shut their eyes if they found the videos too
distressing. They were also told that they could stop the experiment at any time if they felt
uncomfortable. After the experiment was completed, the experimenters explained that this
study was aimed at examining gender differences in emotional responses. Each participant
received 90 RMB as compensation.
Prior to viewing each video, the participants were shown a blank screen for 30 seconds to
allow time for them to clear their minds of all thoughts, feelings, and memories. Subsequently,
they were asked to remain still or not make any strong movements while watching the video to
ensure the quality of HR data. After each video, they were asked to complete the self-report
inventory and clear their mind for 30 seconds before watching the next video. Each participant
viewed 16 video clips (two video clips per emotion type). The order of the videos was organized
so that: (1) no two videos targeting the same emotion were shown consecutively; (2) no more
than three videos of a particular valence (negative or positive) were shown consecutively. All
the videos were counterbalanced for different participants.
Data Analysis
To eliminate gender differences in the response patterns, we used the results of neutral videos as
a control standard. The dependent variable was the difference-value (D-value), which represents
the score for other types of emotion minus that for neutrality. The scores were calculated before
performing an analysis of variance (ANOVA). This method was adopted from a previous study
[29]. Four separate mixed ANOVA tests of gender (men and women) and emotion type (sad-
ness, anger, amusement, surprise, horror, disgust, and pleasure) were performed for the valence,
arousal, motivation, and HR. Emotion type was within-subjects factor. We also calculated the
correlation between the subjective scale scores and physiological responses. All the multiple
pairwise comparisons were performed using Bonferroni’s correction. The uncorrected level of
statistical significance was set at p<.05. We performed 28 (4 dependent variables × 7 emotion
types) multiple pairwise comparisons at most, accordingly, the corrected alpha value was set at
p<0.002 (0.05/28 = 0.002). Data analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0 (IBM).
Results
Correlation between the subjective assessment scores and
physiological responses
We calculated the correlation between the subjective assessment scores (emotional expressiv-
ity) and physiological responses (emotional experience). The results revealed a nonsignificant
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 4/12
correlation between the subjective assessment scores and physiological responses in all types of
emotion in men or women. We considered the subjective assessment scores and physiological
responses to be inconsistent, meaning the emotional expressivity and emotional experience
were inconsistent. Further analyses were performed to test whether the gender differences in
emotional expressivity and emotional experience depend on the emotion types.
Gender differences in emotional experience
Mixed ANOVA of gender and emotion type showed a significant main effect of emotion type
(F
(6,456)
= 5.783, p<.001, η
2
= .071), a nonsignificant main effect of gender (F
(1,76)
= 1.360,
p= .247, η
2
= .018), and a significant interaction of gender and emotion type (F
(6,456)
= 3.129,
p= .005, η
2
= .040). The results of simple effects analysis are shown in Fig 1. The dependent
variable was the D-value of HR between each type of emotion-inducing videos and those that
induced neutrality. The figure shows that the HR declined when the participants watched emo-
tion-inducing videos compared with when they watched neutral videos for both men and
women. Regarding the gender differences in HR, women exhibited a significantly smaller
decline in HR while watching videos that induced anger (M= -1.305, SD = 2.080 versus M=
-2.464, SD = 2.394; p<.002), pleasure (M= -1.134, SD = 2.062 versus M= -2.540, SD = 3.904;
p<.002), and amusement (M= -1.103, SD = 2.477 versus M= -2.405, SD = 2.299; p<.002).
Gender differences in emotional expressivity
Regarding the valence, mixed ANOVA of gender and emotion type showed a significant main
effect of emotion type (F
(6,462)
= 494.659, p<.001, η
2
= .865), a nonsignificant main effect of
Fig 1. The D-value of HR between each type of emotion-inducing videos and those that induced neutrality of men and women. Statistical
significance: *p<.002. Unless marked with an asterisk, no significant differences between these groups were found. Dis: disgust, hor: horror, ang: anger, sur:
surprise, amu: amusement, ple: pleasure.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666.g001
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 5/12
gender (F
(1,77)
= 2.962, p= .089, η
2
= .037), and a significant interaction of gender and emotion
type (F
(6,462)
= 2.692, p<.05, η
2
= .034). Further simple effects analysis is shown in Fig 2. The
dependent variable was the D-value of the valence between each type of emotion-inducing vid-
eos and the videos inducing neutrality. The figure shows that the valence of negative emotions
(disgust, horror, anger, and sadness) was significantly lower than that of neutrality, and the
valence of positive emotions (surprise, amusement, and pleasure) was significantly higher than
that of neutrality (all p<.002). Among the seven emotions, gender differences were evidenced
by significantly lower valence ratings by women, but only for the disgust-inducing videos
(M= -3.171, SD = 1.182 versus M= -2.117, SD = 1.815; p<.002) and the horror-inducing vid-
eos (M= -3.135, SD = 1.307 versus M= -2.466, SD = 1.354; p<.002).
As for arousal, mixed ANOVA of gender and emotion type showed a significant main
effect of emotion type (F
(6,462)
= 8.359, p<.001, η
2
= .098), a significant main effect of gender
(F
(1,77)
= 12.010, p<.001, η
2
= .135), and a nonsignificant interaction of gender and emotion
type (F
(6,462)
= 1.652, p= .131, η
2
= .021). Despite the nonsignificant interaction effect, we also
performed a simple effects analysis. Fig 3 shows the D-value of arousal between each type of
emotion-inducing videos and those that induced neutrality. The figure shows that the arousal
stimulated by the emotion-inducing videos was significantly higher than stimulated by those
inducing neutrality (all p<.002). The results also showed that women reported a higher
arousal value than did men on all emotion types (all p<.002) except the surprise emotion
(p>.002).
Regarding motivation, mixed ANOVA of gender and emotion type revealed a significant
main effect of emotion type (F
(6,462)
= 157.721, p<.001, η
2
= .672), a nonsignificant main
effect of gender (F
(1,77)
= .394, p= .532, η
2
= .005), and a significant interaction of gender and
Fig 2. The D-value of the valence between each type of emotion-inducing videos and the videos inducing neutrality of men and women. Statistical
significance: *p<.002. Unless marked with an asterisk, no significant differences between these groups were found. Dis: disgust, hor: horror, ang: anger, sur:
surprise, amu: amusement, ple: pleasure.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666.g002
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 6/12
emotion type (F
(6,462)
= 4.174, p<.001, η
2
= .051). Further simple effects analysis is shown in
Fig 4. The dependent variable was the D-value of motivation between each type of emotion-
inducing videos and those inducing neutrality. The figure shows that the emotions of sadness,
disgust, horror, and anger induced avoidance motivation compared with neutrality, and the
emotions of surprise, amusement, and pleasure induced approach motivation compared with
neutrality. Gender differences were evidenced by women exhibiting higher avoidance motiva-
tion for the horror-inducing videos (M= -3.145, SD = 1.32 versus M= -2.259, SD = 1.782;
p<.002) and disgust-inducing videos (M= -3.471, SD = .994 versus M= -2.431, SD = 1.677;
p<.002).
Table 1 summarizes the gender differences for emotional expressivity and emotional experi-
ence for each type of emotion.
Discussion
This study extends previous studies on gender differences in emotional responses evaluated
according to emotional experience and emotional expressivity. We observed gender differences
in emotional responses and found that they depend on specific emotion types but not valence.
Women show relatively stronger emotional expressivity, whereas men have stronger emotional
experiences with angry and positive stimuli.
The self-report results are identical to those reported in several previous studies. Women
often report more intense emotional responses [25], particularly for negative emotions [30].
Women in the present study reported higher arousal compared with men on most emotion
types. Women also reported lower valence, higher arousal, and stronger avoidance motivation
Fig 3. The D-value of arousal between each type of emotion-inducing videos and those that induced neutrality of men and women. Statistical
significance: *p<.002. Unless marked with an asterisk, no significant differences between these groups were found. Dis: disgust, hor: horror, ang: anger, sur:
surprise, amu: amusement, ple: pleasure.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666.g003
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 7/12
on disgust and horror emotions. The physiological results, such as the decline in HR while
watching emotional stimulus, are also highly similar to those reported in previous studies
[4,10,11]. This decline reflects the orientation, sustained attention, and action preparation of
the viewers [10]. However, regardless of the valence, men exhibited a larger decline in HR than
did women.
In contrast to our results, Fernández et al. [3] reported a positive correlation between HR
and arousal. In the present study, we found no correlation between the subjective assessment
Fig 4. The D-value of motivation between each type of emotion-inducing videos and those inducing neutrality of men and women. Statistical
significance: *p<.002. Unless marked with an asterisk, no significant differences between these groups were found. Dis: disgust, hor: horror, ang: anger, sur:
surprise, amu: amusement, ple: pleasure.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666.g004
Table 1. Gender differences for emotional expressivity and emotional experience.
emotional expressivity emotional experience
Valence Arousal Motivation Heart rate
anger - women>men - decline: men>women
amusement - women>men - decline: men>women
pleasure - women>men - decline: men>women
horror women<men women>men avoidance: women>men -
disgust women<men women>men avoidance: women>men -
sadness - women>men - -
surprise -- - -
“-”means no gender difference.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666.t001
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 8/12
scores and physiological responses, regardless of the type of emotion or the gender of the par-
ticipant. According to Evers et al. [21], emotional experience and emotional expressivity belong
to different reaction systems. The inconsistency between these two aspects is understandable.
In support of the conclusion of Evers et al., we found similar inconsistencies in our results.
Kret et al. [2] agreed with this notion and noted that, even in the presence of gender differences
in emotion recognition, facial expressions, and subjective assessment, this does not imply that
gender differences exist in emotional experience.
The present study also shows that gender differences depend on the emotion type but not
the valence. First, for the negative emotions, gender differences were observed in horror and
disgust. However, although men and women had the same emotional experience, women had
stronger emotional expressivity, as evidenced by their lower valence scores, higher arousal, and
stronger avoidance motivation. This finding is consistent with Codispoti et al. [10]. For the
anger emotion, we found that men had stronger emotional experiences (e.g., a larger decline in
HR), whereas women had stronger emotional expressivity (e.g., higher reported arousal). Pre-
vious studies have also found that men had a more intense physiological response to anger-
inducing stimuli [2]. Regarding the sadness emotion, we observed no gender difference in emo-
tional experience, although women reported a higher level of arousal.
The aforementioned emotions are all negative emotions, but their patterns in gender differ-
ences differ. Most previous studies have considered only the valence of emotions, and few have
distinguished the content of the emotion. This finding might explain why no consensus has
been reached [2,4–7,19]. Although many studies have argued that women are more sensitive to
negative stimuli, many other studies have found that men are more sensitive to threat or sexual
stimuli [2]. Our study also shows that men have stronger physiological responses on anger.
Second, for the positive emotions, the results show that men have a larger decline in HR
while watching amusement- and pleasure-inducing videos, whereas women have higher levels
of arousal. This is consistent with the findings of a previous study that showed that men had
stronger physiological responses when watching positive videos [9]. However, this is inconsis-
tent with Codispoti et al., who found no gender differences in participants while watching
pleasant films [10]. This inconsistency may be due to the different stimuli used. Codispoti et al.
[10] used a scene of sexual intercourse as a stimulus of pleasure, but we used scenes such as an
enjoyable tour with family members.
According to these results, the present study does not support the widely accepted notion
that women are more emotional than men [13] or that women were more easily affected by
emotions [20], but our results support that women often report more intense feelings [31]. We
suggest that gender differences in emotional responses should be considered according to dif-
ferent types of emotion, and there should be a distinction between the emotional experience
and emotional expressivity.
There are numerous possible theoretical explanations of the reasons for gender differences,
including differences in brain structures and sex hormones [2]. Here, our discussion is focused
more on the reasons for inconsistencies in gender differences between emotional experience
and expressivity, particularly regarding why women report more intense emotions.
First, it may be reasonable to speculate that the inconsistencies are attributable to human
survival in terms of evolution and adaptation. Vigil [32] indicated that gender differences are
the result of people adapting to social structures. Men usually lived in their own tribe, whereas
women often marry to other tribes and assume the role of taking care of children. In competi-
tive environments, women must rely on the support of the tribe to ensure that their children
receive better care. In stressful situations, women require company and support more than
men do [33]. Thus, for women, identifying the emotions and expressions of others and to
expressing themselves quickly and effectively are critical. Women often persuade others to help
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 9/12
them by expressing strong emotions. For men, their main roles are hunting and protecting
family members. Therefore, they must be sensitive to the threat stimuli, including anger, fear,
and similar emotions. Gender differences in emotions may have evolved from the need to
adapt.
Second, although men experience strong emotions, gender stereotypes may have made
them unwilling to express themselves honestly. Studies have found that gender stereotypes
were likely to lead to the observed gender differences in emotional reactions untrue [34,35].
Men are likely to assess emotions according to social expectations. Social stereotypes require
men to be brave and calm, particularly in the face of anger and horror emotions. Thus, even
when men experience very strong physiological arousal, they might not report experiencing
strong emotions and their assessment might be relatively conservative to make others think
they have not been influenced strongly [36]. In the present study, men had stronger emotional
experience on the anger emotion, but they gave this emotion a lower rating. Regarding the hor-
ror emotion, men experienced the same extent of horror as women did, but men reported a
lower rating. This may be another reason as to why gender differences were inconsistent
between emotional experience and emotional expressivity.
Finally, the participants in this study may have regulated their emotions while watching the
emotional videos. Although they were asked to feel their emotions, the possibility of emotion
regulation cannot be excluded. Studies have found that men and women often use different
strategies to regulate their emotions [37]. Emotional expressivity is reflected in the results
of emotional experience after emotional regulation. The gender differences in emotional
responses (particularly emotional expressivity) may be due to the gender differences in emo-
tional regulation. Some studies have indicated that women have greater up-regulation of emo-
tional responses to negative stimuli, which means that they often compound negative emotions
[38]. The results of the present study might support this. Even when the women did not experi-
ence a particularly strong negative emotion, they might have regulated their emotions, inter-
preting them as more negative, which might explain why their expressivity was more intense
for emotions such as anger, horror and disgust.
The present study explored gender differences in emotional experience and emotional
expressivity for specific types of emotion in more detail than previous studies have. However,
several limitations cannot be ignored. First, we discussed physical gender, not psychological or
social gender. With the development of society, increasingly more women participate in social
competition. Such social changes may affect the development of social gender roles, thereby
affecting emotional responses. Second, the numbers of male and female participants differed
considerably (women: men = 1.5: 1), resulting in two markedly different sets of standard devia-
tion, although Fernández et al. [3] showed that a men: women ratio of 1:3 revealed gender dif-
ferences. Third, we asked the participants to report only valence, arousal, and motivation as the
indicators of emotional expressivity. However, this is inadequate. There are many other indica-
tors such as facial expression, body language, wink reflect, and tone of voice. Combining all of
this information rather than relying only on self-reporting might further elucidate the emo-
tional expressivity. Finally, we measured only HR as the indicator of physiological responses.
HR reflects only the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. Studies have shown differences
between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system [29]. Future studies should adopt
more indicators, such as galvanic skin responses and respiratory rate.
Conclusions
The emotional responses elicited by emotional videos were inconsistent between emotional
experience and emotional expressivity. Men had stronger emotional experiences, whereas
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 10 / 12
women had stronger emotional expressivity. Gender differences in emotional experience and
emotional expressivity depended on specific types of emotion, not only the valence.
Supporting Information
S1 File. All the data.
(RAR)
Acknowledgments
The work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2011CB505101)
and the Key Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research in Colleges and Universities in
Jiangsu (2015ZS JDXM001), as well as the Shangshan funding. We would like to express our
gratitude for the support of these projects.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: YD RZ MY. Performed the experiments: YD MY.
Analyzed the data: YD MY. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: YD MY. Wrote the
paper: YD LC MY RZ MH.
References
1. Gard MG, Kring AM. Sex differences in the time course of emotion. Emotion. 2007; 7(2): 429–37.
PMID: 17516819
2. Kret ME, De Gelder B. A review on sex differences in processing emotional signals. Neuropsychologia.
2012; 50(7): 1211–21. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.12.022 PMID: 22245006
3. Fernández C, Pascual JC, Soler J, Elices M, Portella MJ, Fernández-Abascal E. Physiological
responses induced by emotion-eliciting films. Appl Psychophys Biof. 2012; 37(2): 73–9.
4. Bradley MM, Codispoti M, Sabatinelli D, Lang PJ. Emotion and motivation II: sex differences in picture
processing. Emotion. 2001; 1(3): 300–19. PMID: 12934688
5. Fischer AH, Rodriguez Mosquera PM, Van Vianen AE, Manstead AS. Gender and culture differences
in emotion. Emotion. 2004; 4(1): 87–94. PMID: 15053728
6. Hillman CH, Rosengren KS, Smith DP. Emotion and motivated behavior: postural adjustments to affec-
tive picture viewing. Biol Psychol. 2004; 66(1): 51–62. PMID: 15019170
7. Tobin RM, Graziano WG, Vanman EJ, Tassinary LG. Personality, emotional experience, and efforts to
control emotions. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2000; 79(4): 656–69. PMID: 11045745
8. Gohier B, Senior C, Brittain PJ, Lounes N, El-Hage W, Law V, et al. Gender differences in the sensitivity
to negative stimuli: Cross-modal affective priming study. Eur Psychiat. 2013; 28(2): 74–80.
9. Karama S, Lecours AR, Leroux JM, Bourgouin P, Beaudoin G, Joubert S, et al. Areas of brain activation
in men and menwomen during viewing of erotic film excerpts. Hum Brain Mapp. 2002; 16(1): 1–13.
PMID: 11870922
10. Codispoti M, Surcinelli P, Baldaro B. Watching emotional movies: Affective reactions and gender differ-
ences. Int J Psychophysiol. 2008; 69(2): 90–5. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2008.03.004 PMID: 18433903
11. Carvalho S, Leite J, Galdo-Álvarez S, Gonçalves ÓF. The emotional movie database (EMDB): A self-
report and psychophysiological study. Appl Psychophys Biof. 2012; 37(4): 279–94.
12. Dichter GS, Tomarken AJ, Baucom BR. Startle modulation before, during and after exposure to emo-
tional stimuli. Int J Psychophysiol. 2002; 43(2): 191–6. PMID: 11809522
13. Fischer AH, Manstead AS. The relation between gender and emotions in different cultures. Gender
Emotion: Soc Psycholo perspect. 2000; 71–94.
14. Barrett LF, Robin L, Pietromonaco PR, Eyssell KM. Are women the “more emotional”sex? Evidence
from emotional experiences in social context. Cognition Emotion. 1998; 12: 555–78.
15. Grossman M, Wood W. Sex differences in intensity of emotional experience: a social role interpretation.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 1993; 65(5): 1010–22. PMID: 8246109
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 11 / 12
16. Vrana SR, Rollock D. The role of ethnicity, gender, emotional content, and contextual differences in
physiological, expressive, and self-reported emotional responses to imagery. Cognition Emotion. 2002;
16(1): 165–92.
17. Gard MG, Kring AM. Sex differences in the time course of emotion. Emotion. 2007; 7(2): 429–37.
PMID: 17516819
18. Biele C, Grabowska A. Sex differences in perception of emotion intensity in dynamic and static facial
expressions. Exp Brain Res. 2006; 171 (1): 1–6. PMID: 16628369
19. McManis MH, Bradley MM, Berg WK, Cuthbert BN, Lang PJ. Emotional reactions in children: Verbal,
physiological, and behavioral responses to affective pictures. Psychophysiology. 2001; 38(2): 222–31.
PMID: 11347868
20. Wild B, Erb M, Bartels M. Are emotions contagious? Evoked emotions while viewing emotionally
expressive faces: quality, quantity, time course and gender differences. Psychiat Res. 2001; 102(2):
109–24.
21. Evers C, Hopp H, Gross JJ, Fischer AH, Manstead AS, Mauss IB. Emotion response coherence: A
dual-process perspective. Biol Psychol. 2014; 98: 43–9. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2013.11.003 PMID:
24239595
22. Christie IC, Friedman BH. Autonomic specificity of discrete emotion and dimensions of affective space:
A multivariate approach. Int J Psychophysiol. 2004; 51(2): 143–53. PMID: 14693364
23. Zhang Z. Behavioral medicine scale manual. Chinese J Behav Med Sci. 2001; 10(10): 19–24.
24. Yi J, Yao, Zhu X. The Chinese version of the TAS-20: reliability and validity. Chinese Mental Health J.
2003; 17(11): 763–67.
25. Gross JJ, Levenson RW. Emotion elicitation using films. Cognition Emotion. 1995; 9(1): 87–108.
26. Berntson GG, Bigger JT, Eckberg DL, Grossman P, Kaufmann PG, Malik M, et al. Heart rate variability:
origins, methods, and interpretative caveats. Psychophysiology. 1997; 34: 623–48. PMID: 9401419
27. Hodes RL, Cook EW, Lang PJ. Individual differences in autonomic response: conditioned association
or conditioned fear? Psychophysiology. 1985; 22(5): 545–60. PMID: 4048355
28. Mauss I, Robinson M. Measures of emotion: A review. Cognition Emotion. 2009; 23(2): 209–37. PMID:
19809584
29. Liu L, Yang M, Han Z, Zhou R, Cui H. Frontal EEG lateralization predicts individuals’emotional flexibil-
ity. Scientia Sinica Vitae. 2014; 44: 614–22
30. Brody LR, Hall JA. Gender, emotion, and expression. Handbook of emotions. 2000; 2: 338–49.
31. Rottenberg J, Ray RD, Gross JJ. Emotion elicitation using films. Handbook of emotion elicitation and
assessment. Oxford University Press. 2007. pp. 9–28.
32. Vigil JM. Sex differences in affect behaviors, desired social responses, and accuracy at understanding
the social desires of other people. Evol Psychol. 2008; 6(3): 506–22.
33. Taylor SE, Klein LC, Lewis BP, Gruenewald TL, Gurung RA, Updegraff JA. Biobehavioral responses to
stress in menwomen: Tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychol Rev. 2000; 107(3): 411–29. PMID:
10941275
34. LaFrance M, Hecht MA, Paluck EL. The contingent smile: a meta-analysis of sex differences in smiling.
Psychol Bull. 2003; 129(2): 305–34. PMID: 12696842
35. Bluhm R. New research, old problems: Methodological and ethical issues in fMRI research examining
sex/gender differences in emotion processing. Neuroethics. 2013; 6(2): 319–30.
36. Fisher RJ, Dubé L. Gender differences in responses to emotional advertising: A social desirability per-
spective. J Consum Res. 2005; 31(4): 850–58.
37. Garnefski N, Teerds J, Kraaij V, Legerstee J, van den Kommer T. Cognitive emotion regulation strate-
gies and depressive symptoms: Differences between men and menwomen. Pers Indiv Differ. 2004; 36
(2): 267–76.
38. Gardener EKT, Carr AR, MacGregor A, Felmingham KL. Sex differences and Emotion Regulation: An
Event-Related Potential Study. PLOS ONE. 2013; 8(10): e73475. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0073475
PMID: 24204562
Gender Differences in Emotional Response
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158666 June 30, 2016 12 / 12
