Temper, temper...
Mirowsky and Ross's 1995 meta-analysis found that in addition to expressing distress more openly, women also experience more distressing emotions, including anger, while men and women score roughly equally on happiness. (If adjusting for the total emotion load, women appear to be less happy than men). However, Hess et al. (2005) found that social expectations are for men to express anger and women to express happiness. In other words, women experience more anger and men experience more happiness, but they are expected to display the opposite.
Davis et al (1992) suggest that the perception of confrontation has significant gender differences. Women may be less confrontational because they find confrontation more upsetting. However, another contributing factor may be related to predicted results. Cole (2004) found that in disciplinary interactions with employees, women tended to be fairer than men. If these findings are correct, it may be that people expect interactions with women to have better overall results, leading to less conflict escalation.
[note: Article and commentary will appear in one post from now on.]
One of the first times that I made a serious misstep as a man was in supervising a student worker at my job. She'd come in late, and copped an attitude because I didn't trust her to accomplish something on schedule, so I'd started it for her. She snapped at me; I snapped back. Now, I'm able to see now how I was wrong in more ways than just the male-female interaction, but at the time, the disciplinary action taken against me felt entirely out of proportion. It seems to me now that it was because I had reacted like we were both women. A man yelling (even a short, effeminate one, apparently) is socially different than a woman yelling. Even now, although I'm probably one of the least threatening guys you'll ever meet, I still have to work to take into account that my temper has different connotations than it had before.
Davis et al (1992) suggest that the perception of confrontation has significant gender differences. Women may be less confrontational because they find confrontation more upsetting. However, another contributing factor may be related to predicted results. Cole (2004) found that in disciplinary interactions with employees, women tended to be fairer than men. If these findings are correct, it may be that people expect interactions with women to have better overall results, leading to less conflict escalation.
[note: Article and commentary will appear in one post from now on.]
One of the first times that I made a serious misstep as a man was in supervising a student worker at my job. She'd come in late, and copped an attitude because I didn't trust her to accomplish something on schedule, so I'd started it for her. She snapped at me; I snapped back. Now, I'm able to see now how I was wrong in more ways than just the male-female interaction, but at the time, the disciplinary action taken against me felt entirely out of proportion. It seems to me now that it was because I had reacted like we were both women. A man yelling (even a short, effeminate one, apparently) is socially different than a woman yelling. Even now, although I'm probably one of the least threatening guys you'll ever meet, I still have to work to take into account that my temper has different connotations than it had before.