Poster #184 - Development and Validation of the Gender and Emotion Expression Implicit Association Test

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Sex, Gender

Integrative Statement

Emotional development is a central factor in children’s well-being and adaptive functioning (Berking & Wupperman, 2012). It is therefore very important to understand processes and factors underlying children’s emotional development. Previous research has identified gender differences in the expression of emotion, which are evident from early childhood. These differences are consistent with culturally-sanctioned gender roles. In Western culture, for example, research supports greater expression of internalizing emotions (i.e., sadness) by girls versus boys, and greater expression of externalizing emotions (i.e., anger) by boys versus girls (Chaplin & Aldao, 2013; Brody, 1999). As parents are considered primary socializers of emotion, it is well-accepted that emotion parenting practices directly influence children’s emotion expression (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). Thus, parents who subscribe to traditional gender roles may engage in gendered emotion socialization. Indeed, empirical findings demonstrate socialization differences by parent gender (Chaplin, Cole, & Zahn-Waxler, 2005).
From a Meta-emotion Philosophy framework, these gendered parenting practices stem from the gender-related beliefs parents hold about emotion (Gottman, Katz, Hooven, Eisenberg, & Cowan, 1996). In the current research, we therefore proposed that parents’ gendered beliefs about emotion motivate emotion socialization practices. Since the nature of these beliefs are consistent with gender stereotypes, it is possible they occur at an unconscious, implicit level. Most research to date has focused on parents’ explicit beliefs about emotion, but little attention has been given to parents’ implicit beliefs or attitudes. Nonetheless, implicit attitudes (i.e., automatic evaluations occurring outside of awareness) have been found to influence behavior (O’Shea, Watson, & Brown, 2016).
Study aim. The study examined mothers’ and fathers’ implicit attitudes about emotion expression in boys versus girls aged 8-12. For this purpose, the study developed and validated two Implicit Association Tests (IATs) designed to measure parents’ implicit attitudes about gender and the expression of sadness (IATsad) and anger (IATang).
Method. Parents (N = 507) completed either the IATsad or IATang, and explicit measures of emotion beliefs and emotion socialization. Following Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz’s (1998) IAT guidelines, parents categorized images of children’s faces (i.e., crying girl/crying boy for IATsad and angry girl/angry boy for IATang) with pleasant or unpleasant words. If two categories are highly associated, categorization reaction time will be faster (Banaji, Greenwald, & Nosek, 2005).
Results. Regarding the expression of sadness, mothers found crying girls relatively more pleasant than crying boys (D = .41). Regarding the expression of anger, mothers found angry girls relatively more pleasant than angry boys (D = .41). Fathers did not show any biased implicit attitudes about gender and emotion expression (Ds = .02 and -.04 for IATsad and IATang, respectively; see Figure 1). Mothers’ anger-related bias was negatively associated with supportive reactions to children’s expression of sadness and positively associated with unsupportive reactions to children’s anger and sadness.
The current study validates a new measure of implicit attitudes about gender and emotion. The findings regarding mothers, but not fathers, are consistent with broader gender rules encouraging greater emotion expressivity in girls versus boys, regardless of emotion type (Gross & John, 1995).

Authors

• Jessica A Seddon, University of Guelph
  Presenting Author

• Kristel Thomassin, University of Guelph
  Non-Presenting Author

• Linda Sosa Hernandez, University of Guelph
  Non-Presenting Author