ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa & CIS-IUL, Portugal.
Scand J Psychol. 2019 Oct;60(5):421-429. doi: 10.1111/sjop.12568. Epub 2019 Aug 4.
Prior studies have shown that facial emotion displays communicate emotional states and interpersonal intentions. This study addressed gender differences in aggression based on the facial emotional cues expressed from a fictional opponent. A modified version of the competitive reaction time task (CRTT) was used to measure aggression. Participants (N = 251), between 18 and 35 years of age, were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions of the fictional opponents' facial emotional cue displayed during the CRTT: anger, sadness, neutral, or the absence of facial expression. After each trial, participants were asked to report their own feelings and to choose a level of noise to administer to their opponent. Finally, motives for aggression were assessed. Results showed that women were less aggressive than men when receiving emotional cues of sadness and anger from the sender. In contrast, no gender differences occurred when a neutral expression was displayed or in the absence of any expression. In addition, men displayed similar levels of aggression across the four conditions, whereas women were more aggressive in both neutral and no feedback conditions than in the sad and anger conditions. Instrumental motives contributed to explaining the overall gender differences in aggression. These results suggest important moderator and mediator factors of gender differences in aggressive behavior.
先前的研究表明，面部表情传达情感状态和人际意图。本研究基于从虚构对手那里表达的面部情绪线索，探讨了攻击性的性别差异。竞争反应时任务 (CRTT) 的修改版被用于测量攻击性。参与者（N=251）年龄在 18 至 35 岁之间，被随机分配到 CRTT 期间显示的虚构对手面部情绪线索的四种条件之一：愤怒、悲伤、中性或没有面部表情。每次试验后，参与者被要求报告自己的感受，并选择向对手发出的噪音水平。最后，评估了攻击的动机。结果表明，当接收来自发送者的悲伤和愤怒情绪线索时，女性比男性的攻击性低。相比之下，当显示中性表情或没有任何表情时，性别差异则不存在。此外，男性在四种情况下表现出相似的攻击性水平，而女性在中性和无反馈情况下的攻击性均高于悲伤和愤怒情况下。工具性动机有助于解释攻击性的总体性别差异。这些结果表明，在攻击行为方面，性别差异存在重要的调节和中介因素。
