Children's stereotypes about sex differences in emotionality

Given a task in which sex & emotions were to be paired on ambiguous puppy dog faces, preschool children (N = 12 Ms, 12 Fs) associated Ms with anger & Fs with fear, sadness, & happiness. In an effort to determine whether adults shared these stereotypes, Coll undergraduates (N = 20 Ms, 25 Fs) were asked to do essentially the same task in the guise of providing base-line data to which the children's responses could be compared. Results duplicated those for children with the exception that the association of fear with femaleness did not reach significance. The stereotypes are generally not reflective of actual sex differences in emotionality; various explanations for this finding are posited. 4 Tables, 1 Figure. D. Abrahams.