Relation of Sex and Sex Role to Adults' Ability to Decode Infants' Emotions

Abstract

The present study examined the relative contributions of sex and sex role to subjects' ability to recognize infants' emotional expressions. Men and women were classified into traditional, androgynous, and undifferentiated sex-role categories based upon their Bern Sex-role Inventory scores; women with a cross-sex orientation were also included. Subjects judged infants' emotions from a set of slides. Analysis indicated an effect for sex, with women outperforming men. A sex-role effect was also found, with cross-sex women and traditional men exhibiting the best decoding performance; androgynous subjects achieved the lowest decoding scores. Findings support recent ideas regarding the role of masculinity, at least when combined with low femininity scores, in decoding.

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