Sex Differences in Reading Facial Expressions

>Men's sensitivity to negative cues signaled by other men, such as an angry facial expression, is an intriguing exception to women's overall advantage in reading nonverbal cues; men are more sensitive to these cues than to the same ones signaled by women (N. G. Rotter & Rotter, 1988; Wagner et al., 1993; M. A. Williams & Mattingley, 2006). In two large-scale studies involving more than 1,100 people, N. G. Rotter and Rotter found that women are more accurate than men in judging disgust, fear, or sadness in the facial expressions of other women and of men. Women are also more accurate than men in detecting an angry expression on the face of other women. Men, in contrast, are more accurate in detecting an angry expression on the face of other men (N. G. Rotter & Rotter, 1988). Dimberg and Öhman (1996) concluded that men are more sensitive to the angry expressions of other men than they are to the angry expressions of women, especially when these anger-signaling cues are expressed in adult men as contrasted with adolescents and when the expressions are directed toward the individual (e.g. with eye contact). Women, in contrast, appear to be equally senstive to angry expressions in men and other women. At the same time, men are less accurate in detecting disgust, fear, and sadness in other men's facial expressions than in detecting these cues in women's facial expressions.<

Male, Female - The Evolution of Human Sex Differences

David C. Geary (2010)