Gender Differences in Emotional Expressivity - Essay Example

1. Student Cafeteria, Math Class, Home Living Room, Walmart Queue, Local Park
2. Student Cafeteria = 4 (M) 3 (F)

Math Class = 1 (M) 4 (F)

Home Living Room 4 (M) 4 (F)

Walmart Queue 4 (M) 3 (F)

Local Park 2 (M) 4 (F)

3. For the conversation that I observed in the student cafeteria, I gave the male a higher score because of his aggressiveness towards the server lady. I was standing some distance away so I could not quite be sure of what exactly was being said, but I thought that the guy wanted more food or something because he kept pointing to his plate of food and then mouthing something off at the lady behind the counter. I do not know him so I am not sure of what type of person he is usually, but at that moment he seemed to be someone who can get very emotional very quickly. The female behind the counter naturally was a little embarrassed and was not looking to get angry at him. She seemed to want to try to calm him down by diffusing the situation.

The conversation that I observed in my math class, was a little different because I did know the two people involved and I was sitting closer to them so I knew what they were talking about. The guy seemed to not understand some concept that the female teacher was trying to explain to him, and I could see he was very frustrated by the whole thing. On the other hand, the teacher was waving her arms around and seemed annoyed that the guy had not listened to her when she was explaining in front of the entire class.

For my home living room, once again I knew the two people involved because they were my younger brother and my mom. Because of this close relationship, I was able to actively listen to their conversation. My mom was getting very paranoid and shaking her hands because my younger brother had not taken out the trash as she had asked. In response, my brother was getting very agitated and showing his displeasure at this request. This was perhaps the only conversation I observed where the male and female involved were both very emotionally expressive.

In my observation of the Walmart queue, the guy in front of me was getting very angry because the female checkout operator told him that his credit card was not accepted. I could see the man getting very upset and taking all his anger out on the poor employee. At the same time, this older woman was not the type of person to take abuse without a response so she did stand up to him and try to control him.

Finally, for the conversation that I witnessed at my local park, it was very difficult to make out what was happening because I was so far away. I could not tell what relationship the pair of teenagers had, but I guessed that they were in a romantic relationship with each other because of how close they were to each other. The girl was looking really stressed and angry at her supposed boyfriend, and I can only guess that she wanted to break up with him or something because of the way she was acting and the guy's response to her. He was more subdued and didn't appear to put up much of a fight.

4. 15 (M) = Avg. 3 15 (F) = Avg. 3.6
5. The gender that had the highest average emotional expressiveness score was the female group, but this is not really surprising. My data does support the research finding that women are more emotionally expressive than men, but the gap is much closer than most people make out. I think my data shows that although women do express their emotions often, men can also display some emotion if the occasion requires it. The longstanding belief that only women can communicate emotionally is a little bit wrong because I think that nowadays the gap is closer than ever before. I think this is in part due to the blurring of gender roles and the fact that men now feel slightly more comfortable expressing themselves emotionally. I was a little surprised by my finding because it was not what I expected. I would have thought that men would have scored closer to 2 and women about 4, but the gap was much narrower than I first thought.