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Sex differences in emotion recognition ability: The mediating role of trait emotional awareness

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Abstract

Although previous research on emotion recognition ability (ERA) has found consistent evidence for a female advantage, the explanation for this sex difference remains incompletely understood. This study compared males and females on four emotion recognition tasks, using a community sample of 379 adults drawn from two regions of the United States (stratified with respect to age, sex, and socioeconomic status). Participants also completed the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), a measure of trait emotional awareness (EA) thought to primarily reflect individual differences in emotion concept learning. We observed that individual differences in LEAS scores mediated the relationship between sex and ERA; in addition, we observed that ERA distributions were noticeably non-normal, and that—similar to findings with other cognitive performance measures—males had more variability in ERA than females. These results further characterize sex differences in ERA and suggest that these differences may be explained by differences in EA—a trait variable linked primarily to early learning.

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Funding

Supported by BRSG 2S07 RR05675-23 awarded by the Biomedical Research Support Grant Program, Division of Research Resources, National Institutes of Health to R.D.L.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85724-5002, USA

    Ron Wright, Richard D. Lane & Ryan Smith

  2. Department of Psychology, Lynn University, Boca Raton, FL, USA

    Robert Riedel

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Lee Sechrest & Richard D. Lane

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  1. Ron Wright
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  2. Robert Riedel
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  3. Lee Sechrest
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  4. Richard D. Lane
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Correspondence to Ryan Smith.

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Wright, R., Riedel, R., Sechrest, L. et al. Sex differences in emotion recognition ability: The mediating role of trait emotional awareness. Motiv Emot 42, 149–160 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-017-9648-0

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