Emotional Segues and the Management of Emotion by Women and Men

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that gender may be less influential on the experience of emotion than originally believed. Most of these studies, however, have focused almost exclusively on gender differences in discrete emotional experiences, paying less attention to the ways in which emotions may co-occur within a relatively short period. Using the General Survey’s 1996 emotions module, I examine the correlational structure of nine latent emotion factors – tranquility, joy, hope, pride, self-reproach, anger, rage, fear and distress – by gender. Using the technique of shortest path analysis, I find women’s most common emotional pathways are longer, more complex, and more likely to use more positive and less powerful emotions than those most common to men. Implications for emotion management, both personal and interpersonal, are discussed. Sociologists and laypersons generally have agreed that women and men occupy different emotional spheres (Cancian 1987; Hochschild 1983). Cultural arguments regarding gender and emotion suggest that women and men are socialized to experience particular emotions and, at the same time, avoid the experience of others. Anger, for example, is typically deemed more appropriate for men, whereas sadness seems more fitting for women (Stearns and Stearns 1986). More generally, early sociological research suggests that women are more likely than men to report experiencing emotions that can be thought of as relatively weak such as contentment, depression and anxiety, and less likely to experience and express emotions that are viewed as relatively strong such as pride, anger and rage (Stearns and Stearns 1986). 1 Women are also more likely to be expected to feel and express relatively positive emotions, such as happiness or joy (Hochschild 1979, 1983). In contrast, more recent studies of gender and emotion, particularly those using survey data and experiments, suggest that the effects of gender may be overstated or have winnowed through the years (Heise

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