Men's and women's lay theories of emotion

The chapter discusses the extent to which emotion stereotypes and norms, as reflected in lay theories of emotion, vary according to gender. It will be argued that two sets of stereotypes (and associated norms) are activated when people conceptualize how and why men and women experience, express, and regulate (specific) emotion(s). On the one hand people have emotion(s) scripts that specify likely or typical causes of felt emotion(s), event appraisal, regulation processes, etc.; on the other hand, people have stereotypical beliefs about men and women, masculinity and femininity. It is the interaction between the two sets of theories that might result in the stereotypical belief that women are emotional and men are rational, or in other, more specific gendered-emotion beliefs. The study of lay theories of emotion --i.e., the complex set of beliefs that people have about emotion, both in general and in relation to specific situational contexts-- allows us to investigate how this interaction works. The chapter discusses lay theories of emotion as they emerge from a set of studies that focused on various emotion constellations --jealousy, envy, anger, pride, joy, sadness. In these studies, women and men were asked to imagine, for a member of their own sex, which “reactions” are elicited by a (specified) emotion antecedent, and which reactions are “adequate” in that context. In sum, the studies focused on (a) ‘descriptive’ and (b) ‘prescriptive’ emotion norms. The chapter will focus on: (i) which norms emerge, and what (c) discrepancies exist between a and b; (ii) to what extent, and for what specific emotion component or aspect, a,b, and c are gender-stereotyped (e.g., are women attributed more intrapunitive emotions than men are?; is expression of felt emotions thought to be more adequate for women than for men?); (iii) whether men and women endorse different norms. The congruency between subjects’ theories, and gendered stereotipic beliefs (e.g., in comparison to men, women are expected to be less apt to regulate their felt emotions, to have a greater knowledge of emotion, to express less socially sanctioned emotions) will be discussed. The conclusions to be drawn from these comparisons are extended by a discussion of other results obtained both in the same set of studies (e.g., subjects answered questions about the extent to which one feels conflicting or unclear emotions), and in other studies, including various intra- and inter-cultural replications (e.g., reactions were attributed to a member of the opposite sex; subjects reported actual events rather than judging vignettes) that addressed relevant questions for the issue of lay theories.