Sex Roles, Vol. 20, Nos.

5/6, 1989

Beyond Depression: Gender Differences in Normal Adolescents' Emotional Experiences

Janice C. Stapley and Jeannette M. Haviland 2
Rutgers-- The State University o f New Jersey

Adolescents (N = 262) in the fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh grades reported the frequency, intensity, and duration o f their experiences of 12 emotions and the situations during which they occurred. The first three scales of emotion combined to produce the emotion saliency score. Girls reported higher saliences of surprise, sad, self-hostility, shame, shy, and guilt. Boys reported higher saliency of contempt. Factor analysis of the salient emotions retained the same three factors for both genders: positive emotion, inner-passive, and outer-hostile negative emotions. The loadings for surprise, sad, and anger on each factor suggested within factor gender differences. Most salient emotions were experienced with peers," however, boys experienced both surprise and sadness more often when alone than did girls. There were gender differences in most emotion categories on the events associated with salient emotions. Boys found activities and achievement, and girls found affiliation, to be emotionally salient. These data suggest that gender differences in emotion are pervasive rather than confined to depressive emotion and include differences in the organizational properties of emotion. There are well-documented gender differences in the reports of both frequency and pervasiveness of depression (for review, see Nolen-Hoeksema, 1987). These differences, long observed among adults, have also recently been found among adolescents (Baron & Perron, 1986; Rutter, 1986; Webb & VanDe-

'This study was based upon data collected for the first author's dissertation under the direction of the second author. Preliminary analyses were presented at Eastern Psychological Association, Crystal City, Maryland, 1987. 2To whom reprint requests should be addressed at the Department of Psychology, Rutgers -- The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903. 295 0360-~25/89/03004)2955116.00/0 1989 Plenum PublishinBCorporation

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vere, 1985). The purpose of our research is to go beyond demonstrating simple gender differences in depressive emotion reports during early and middle adolescence in order to ask two basic questions about gender differences in emotion reports. The first question relates to the potential special status of depression. Do males and females differ only in experience of depressive states, or are there differences in the frequency and pervasiveness of several emotions? In other words, do gender differences in depressive states merely rest among a wide variety of emotional differences? The second question relates to the organizational properties of emotions. Even though men and women, girls and boys, may differ in the frequency or pervasiveness of reports of emotions and moods, are these feelings nevertheless perceived to occur under similar conditions, that is, with similar types of people and under similar motivating circumstances? Most reports examine depression without assessing other emotions separately. This has naturally led to a research literature that is well informed about gender differences in depression, without being similarly well informed about gender differences in other emotional states. Although we have long known that emotion reports do not lie on a single a positive-negative dimension (e.g., Bradburn, 1969), and that one may be happy and sad simultaneously or that one may be sad and angry simultaneously, and so forth, most examinations of depression have continued to use the bidimensional model. The dominance of this approach has overshadowed the potential of using a multi-emotional approach such as that favored in the domain of traditional emotion research (e.g., Izard, 1971, 1977; Tomkins, 1962). Within the paradigms used for emotion research, the term emotion is reserved for the set of discrete feelings that have innate physiological components, a distinct facial and postural expression, and a distinct experiential quality. The definition of basic emotions does not deny that experience modifies the emotion system, especially in terms of the overt display of emotion and the meaning of emotion (Izard, 1971; Malatesta & Haviland, 1985). Indeed, both the display and the meaning or interpretation of emotions are the two areas where the effects of gender socialization would be expected (Haviland & Malatesta, 1981). There is reason to suspect that depressive states may be organized in subtly different ways between men and women during childhood and early adolescence. For example, Blumberg and Izard (1985) found that self-hostility is an important predictor of depression for fifth-grade girls, whereas anger is an important predictor of boys' depression scores. Baron and Joly (1988) found that body image distortion, loss of appetite, weight loss, mood, and lack of satisfaction are predominant symptoms of depression for adolescent girls, whereas irritability, work inhibition, social withdrawal, and sleep dis-

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turbance are the characteristic symptoms of the boys. Thus, inner-directed negative affects appear more frequently associated with depression for girls whereas outer-directed negative emotions are more characteristic of boys' depression. Furthermore, Baron and Joly (1988) have suggested that the eliciting conditions for experiences of depression may differ by gender. They found that depression with an external focus on performance concerns is more characteristic of boys. Girls are more likely to focus on bodily concerns as the reason for their depressive moods. These differences in the meaning of affects and affect organization, if confirmed, might lead to a reconceptualization of depression scales. Since depression scales (e.g., The Children's Depression Inventory--Kovacs & Beck, 1977; Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale--Reynolds, 1986) focus on inner-directed affects in their composition, they m a y be measuring female negative affect. Then if more girls demonstrate female types of depression, it represents only construct validity. While the present study does not encompass this larger issue, it has some bearing on it. In order to study the first question concerning the more global gender differences in the reporting of emotion, adolescents reported the frequency, intensity, and duration of experiences o f each basic emotion. The discrete emotions approach facilitates identification of gender similarities and differences in experiencing the full range of basic emotions. To address the second question concerning the conditions of emotion experience, adolescents reported the events associated with experiences of the fundamental emotions. Gender differences in a normal sample of adolescents are predicted in both d o m a i n s - i n reports on frequency, intensity, and duration, and in reports on conditions for experiencing an emotion. Girls should experience more sadness and inner-directed negative emotions whereas boys should experience more outer-directed negative emotions. There should also be gender differences in the meaning of emotions that will be reflected in differences in the association of emotions and other life experiences. Specifically, sadness should be more frequently associated with achievement issues for boys, and with bodily concerns and interpersonal issues for girls.

METHOD

Subjects
Public school students in Grades 5, 7, 9, and 11 in a middle-class community were invited to participate in the study. Volunteers returned h u m a n

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subjects informed consent forms from their parents, and they, themselves, signed a similar informed consent form. Although the majority of the students were white, there were a minority of black, Oriental, and Middle Eastern students in the district. The participation rate for students in school on the day the data were collected was 657o. The numbers of participating students were as follows: 74 fifth graders (33 boys and 41 girls), 58 seventh graders (22 boys and 36 girls), 68 ninth graders (29 boys and 39 girls), and 62 eleventh graders (26 boys and 36 girls). The mean age for both boys and girls was 13.4 years, and the range for both was f r o m 11 to 17 years.

Materials and Procedure

Izard's Differential Emotions Scale (DES) was used to assess the frequency, intensity, and duration of subjective emotion experiences. Each feeling is measured by three items. The mean of these three items is used as a scale score. The DES is a self-report inventory that assesses the individual's subjective experience of ten fundamental emotions based upon differential emotions theory (Izard, 1971, 1977). They are interest, joy, surprise, shy, guilt, sad, fear, anger, disgust, and contempt. The DES III has been validated for children as young as 8 years of age (Kotsch, Gerbing, & Schwartz, 1982). The DES IV is exactly the same as the DES III and is scored in the same way, but adds a set of questions for shame and self-hostility. These are correlated with and predictive of depression (Blumberg & Izard, 1985, 1986) and seem appropriate to retain for further exploration of adolescent emotional development. The Elicitors of Emotion Questionnaire (EEQ; Stapley & Haviland, 1986) was used to examine the context of experiences of the ten fundamental emotions in more detail. This is a free-response questionnaire. The stems for each emotion item were taken from the DES by choosing the single item with the highest factor loading from each scale, with slight modifications to prevent some items from sounding more "action oriented" than others and to remove variations in the suggested intensity of the experience. These include: felt like you were interested; felt happy; felt surprised; felt unhappy, blue, down hearted; felt angry, irritated, annoyed; felt disgusted, like something was sickening; felt like somebody was a "good-for-nothing." The students also filled out a short background information sheet that contained questions concerning pubertal status, birth order, and number of siblings. (These data are not discussed here.) Each class was visited twice by the first author and a research assistant. In the first visit the study was briefly described and the students' questions were answered. During the second visit groups of 10-30 students

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completed all the questionnaires in one session (usually a single class period) during the regular school day.

Coding
A coding scheme was developed for the free-response data f r o m the EEQ by using the coding manual f r o m our pilot study (Haviland, Rivera, & Stapley, 1985) with some modifications to capture the majority of responses in the present data set. The people with whom emotions were experienced were coded into 5 mutually exclusive categories: alone, family, same-sex peer, opposite-sex peer, and other. The events associated with the emotions were coded into 12 mutually exclusive categories: activities, achievement, affiliation, aggression/destruction, body/appearance, object/acquisition, death/illness, denial, emotions, sexual affiliation, other, and wrong/punish. All coding was done by the first author and a research assistant who was blind to the hypotheses of the study. Intercoder reliability was assessed by comparing the agreement between the two coders for the 20% of the protocols that had been coded by both of them. There was 9570 perfect agreement for coding people they were with and 927o perfect agreement for coding events.

RESULTS

Emotion Saliency
The students' responses to the DES across the three dimensions (frequency, intensity, and duration) were collapsed into a single scale score, since these responses were highly intercorrelated. Cronbach's alphas for these salience of emotion scale scores ranged f r o m .79 to .90. Thus a single variable that captured each emotion in the individual's overall emotional profile was created. Two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs; Gender x Grade) were computed for each o f the 12 emotion scales. As shown in Fig. 1, the combined saliency data indicates that boys and girls follow similar patterns, but differences emerge. They differ on shy [F(1,254) = 8.21, p _< .005], contempt [F(1,254) = 7.31, p _< .007], surprise [F(1,254) = 11.25, p _< .0009], shame [F(1,254) = 5.94, p _< .02], guilt [F(1,254) = 4.21, p _< .04], sad [F(1,254) = 35.99, p _< .0001], and self-hostility [F(1,254) = 4.29, p _< .04]. Boys are higher on contempt, whereas girls are higher on shy, surprise, shame, guilt, sad, and self-hostility.

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There were no significant interactions between gender and grade. As reported elsewhere (Stapley & Haviland, 1988) the saliency of several negative emotions [shy: F(3,254) = 4.66, p _< .004; shame: F(3,254) = 5.64, p _< .0009; fear F(3,254) = 7.66, p _< .0001; contempt: F(3,254) = 2.88, p _< .04; and disgust: F(3,254) = 3.4, p _< .02] decreases with grade. As shown in Table I, three factors are retained (based on mineigen criterion) for both sexes when or.thogonal factor analyses of emotion salienTable I. Factor Loadings of Salience of Emotion Scales
Negative emotions (l) Inner-passive Scales Shy Fear Shame Guilt Self-hostility Sad Anger Disgust Contempt Surprise Interest Joy Boys .81 .74 .74 .66 _72 .75 .48 .41 .I3 .65 .02 -.21 Girls .80 .74 .78 .75 .76 _56 .34 .33 -_28 -31 .08 -.20 (II) Outer-active Boys _22 .13 .28 .19 .37 _35 _61 .72 .86 -.i6 _24 -_19 Girls .18 .05 _16 .01 .37 .63 .76 .59 _72 03 .13 -_40 (III) Positive emotions Boys -_13 .03 -.09 .07 -.20 -.17 .06 - .27 .I3 .52 _80 .79 Girls -_04 11 .08 .20 -.05 -.04 -.05 -. I 1 _15 _71 _78 .70

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cy are performed. The three factors are (I) inner-passive negative e m o t i o n s , (II) outer-active negative e m o t i o n s , and (III) positive e m o t i o n s . H o w e v e r , for boys, surprise loads o n both positive and negative factors, and anger loads on both negative factors. For girls, sadness loads o n both negative factors, but surprise loads only on the positive factor.

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Beyond Depression

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are more frequently with people for experiences of sadness and surprise, whereas boys are more frequently alone. Most emotional experiences occur with peers for both genders. There were significant sex differences in reports of events associated with specific emotions for joy [X2 = 25.22 (df = 6), p _< .001], surprise [X2 = 35.36, (dr = 8), p _< .001], sad [x 2 = 25.72 (df = 9), p <__ .01], guilt [x 2 = 17.51 (df = 8), p _< .05], disgust [X2 = 18.36 (dr = 8), p __ .02], and anger [x 2 = 31.48, (df = 8), p _< .001]. As can be seen in Fig. 3, boys more frequently deny experiencing surprise, sadness, guilt, and disgust. Across all o f the emotions for which gender differences were found, affiliation and boy/girl or sexual situations are more frequently reported for all emotions by girls.

DISCUSSION The emotion reports obtained in the present study suggest that gender differences in emotion are indeed pervasive rather than confined to depressive emotions. While many of the saliency properties appear similar, the ways that emotions organize experience are quite different. The emotion saliency scores assess the importance of each discrete emotion in the individual's overall emotional profile. They were created by combining an individual's reports of the frequency, intensity, and duration of experiences of each emotion. As would be expected for a group of normal adolescents, the positive emotions of joy and interest are the most salient in their profile. Anger is the most salient negative emotion. Clearly, contempt is more salient in the profile of adolescent boys than girls, whereas surprise and emotions related to the feminine depressive state (shyness, shame, guilt, sadness, and self-hostility) are more salient for girls. There are no gender differences in the saliency of joy, interest, anger, or disgust in this age group. The finding that there are three similar factors for emotion saliency indicates that gender differences in this type of measurement, when they are detected, are subtle. The differences in this study pertain both to the expected differences in the loadings of anger and sad, but also point to a gender difference in the experience of surprise. The first difference is broadly cited in the adult literature and is, therefore, only confirmed here in an adolescent population. The second difference in gender experiences of surprise was not predicted, but is confirmed across all measures of adolescent emotion experience in the study. Surprise, for adolescent boys, often performs like a negative emotion. It loads on a negative affect factor. It is experienced more in solitude than in social situations, and it is denied frequently, as are many other negative emotions. Surprise', for adolescent girls, performs as a positive emotion. It

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loads primarily on the positive affect factor. Surprise, for girls, occurs in social settings and the experience is frequently reported. More evidence for subtle differences in the organization of emotional experiences during adolescence can be found in the reports of the contexts for particular emotions. The overwhelming importance of peers in the emotional lives of adolescents, which has been documented previously (e.g., Czikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984), is clearly evident in these data. Across all of the emotions, peers are most frequently present during emotional experiences. This is so for both the boys and the girls. There were only gender differences in the experiences of sadness and surprise. Boys are more likely than girls to experience sadness and surprise when alone, whereas girls more often experience them when with their family or peers. There were consistent gender effects for the experiences associated with particular emotions, including anger, sadness, disgust, guilt, and surprise. Adolescent girls experience all emotions in affiliative interactions, particularly boy-girl situations. This is not the case for adolescent boys, who associate only sad, happy, and surprise with affiliative experiences. In this sense the girls' affiliative experiences are more emotionally elaborated. Both boys and girls find activities and situations where performance may be assessed both in sports or hobbies and in school to be strongly associated with m a n y emotions. This is the most emotionally elaborated category for boys. Although it is equally as elaborated for girls, the affiliative category is more important for them. Boys may deny having a m e m o r y of experiencing any emotion (with the exception of happy). When girls deny m e m o r y of an experience of emotion it is usually restricted to disgust or guilt. The clearest gender differences are that girls report elaborated emotion in affiliative events and boys deny m a n y experiences of emotion. Although girls and boys are almost equally elaborated in the areas of activity, achievement, and aggression, the absence of affiliative elaboration among boys makes these categories primary for them and secondary for girls. The gender differences in the conditions under which emotions are experienced are consistent with those reported long ago by Jersild and Tasch (1941). Since emotion saliency and the situational organization of emotional experiences differ, it is a complex task to make assessments of gender differences in constructs such as global emotional intensity (e.g., Diener, Sandvik, & Larsen, 1985). I f males and females find different types of situations to be emotionally charged, then it is not possible to conclude that there are gender differences in emotional intensity by simply comparing the intensity of their responses to identical situations. Gender differences in emotion reports are indeed not specific to the state of depression. The gender differences in emotion profiles reported here generally support the prediction that among the boys outer-directed nega-

Beyond Depression

30"/

tive emotions predominate whereas inner-directed negative emotions are more characteristic of the girls. This pattern is consistent with that noted for depressed adolescents (Blumberg & Izard, 1985; Webb & VanDevere, 1985) and for late adolescents' use of defense mechanisms (Seay, Silvan, Juska, Hartiner, & Taleporas, 1987). Lewis (1985) suggested that women's depression and men's paranoia are both caricatures of normal general differences in emotion profiles, which are influenced by gender roles. The various explanations that have been suggested to account for the gender differences in depression have recently been reviewed elsewhere (Nolan-Hoksema, 1987). To date, there is no substantial support for any of them. The data presented here are consistent with Lewis's (1985) suggestion that gender differences in psychopathology parallel gender differences in normal emotional functioning. The results of the present study suggest that depression scales m a y be biased toward measuring deviation from normal female emotional experience. The scales do not seem to contain m a n y items sensitive to male emotional experience. For example, depression scales emphasize feelings associated with affiliation including loneliness, liking, talking with others, and so on. They also emphasize public expressions such as crying. Review of both the Beck and the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale did not reveal any items related to disturbances in involvements in activities such as sports, riding around, other movement activities, or in ability to relax with entertainment such as television or hobbies. There were no questions pertaining to dysfunction in avoiding emotion display either. There are no questions regarding feelings of contempt and only one regarding anger. All of these areas are central to normal male emotional functioning. Dysfunction would probably be related to the perception that these areas were disrupted. The results of our study suggest that there are significant gender differences in the reporting of the characteristics of most emotions during the adolescent years. These more general differences in emotional reports during adolescence merit further research because they may be related not only to the dysphoric feelings associated with depression, but more generally to gender differences in cognitive styles, motivation, and self-concept.

REFERENCES
Baron, P., & Joly, E. Sex differences in the expression of depression in adolescents. Sex Roles, 1988, 18, 1-7. Baron, P., & Perron, L. Sex differences in the Beck Depression Inventory Scores of Adolescents_ Journal o f Youth and Adolescence, 1986, 2, 165-171_ Blumberg, S_ H., & Izard, C. E. Affective and cognitive characteristics of depression in 10and 11-year olds. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 1985, 49(1), 194-202_

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Blumberg, S. H., & lzard, C. E. Discriminating patterns of emotions in 10- and ll-year-old children's anxiety and depression_ Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 1986, 51, 852-857. Bradburn, N. The structure o f psychological well-being. Chicago: Aldine, 1969. Csikszentmihalyi, M_, & Larson, R. Being adolescent." Conflict and growth in the teenage years. New York: Basic Books, 1984. Diener, E., Sandvik, E., & Larsen, R. Age and sex effects for emotional intensity_ Developmental Psychology, 1985, 21(3), 542-546. Haviland, J. M., & Malatesta, C_ Z. The development of sex differences in nonverbal signals: Fallacies, facts and fantasies. In C. Mayo & N. M_ Henley (Eds.), Genderand nonverbal behavior. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1981_ Haviland, J. M., Rivera, J. M., & Stapley, J_ C. Early adolescent emotional development. Unpublished manuscript, Rutgers--The State Umversity of New Jersey. Izard, C. E. The face o f emotion. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971_ Izard, C. E_ Human emotions_ New York: Plenum Press, 1977. Izard, C. E_, Dougherty, F., Bloxom, B., & Kotsch, W. The Differential Emotions Scale: A method o f measuring the subjective experience o f discrete emotions. Unpublished manuscript, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Jersild, A. T., & Tasch, R_ J. Children's interests. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1941. Kotsch, W. E., Gerbing, D. W., & Schwartz, L_ E. The construct validity of the Differential Emotions Scale as adopted for children and adolescents_ In C. E. Izard (Ed_), Measuring emotions in infants and children. London: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Kovacs, M., & Beck, A T. An empirical clinical approach towards a definition of childhood depression_ In J. G. Schulterbrant & A. Raskin (Eds.), Depression in children: Diagnosis, treatment, and conceptual models. New York: Raven Press, 1977. Lewis, H. B. Depression vs. paranoia: Why are there sex differences in mental illness? Journal o f Personality, 1985, 53(2), 150-178. Malatesta, C. Z., & Haviland, J_ M. Signals, symbols, and socialization: The modification of emotional expression in human development. In M. Lewis & C. Saarni (Eds.), The socialization o f emotion. New York: Plenum Press, 1985. Nolen-Hoeksema, S. Sex differences in unipolar depression: Evidence and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 1987, 101(2), 259-282. Reynolds, W. M_ Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, 1986. Rutter, M. The developmental psychopathology of depression: Issues and perspectives_ In M. Rutter, C. E. Izard, & P_ B. Read (Eds.), Depression in young people. New York: Guilford Press, 1986_ Seay, W_, Silvan, M , Juska, M., Hartiner, E_, & Taleporas, E. (1987). Ego defensive functioning: Age and sex differences_ Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Alexandria, VA, 1987. Stapley, J. C., & Haviland, J_ M. The elicitors of emotion questtonnaire. Unpublished manuscript, Rutgers--The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, N J, 1986. Stapley, J. C., & Haviland, J_ M. Subjective experience o f emotion among normal adolescents_ Paper presented at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research on Adolescence: Crystal City, MD, 1988. Tomkins, S. S_ Affect, imagery and consciousness (Volume 1)_ The positive affects_ New York: Springer-Verlag, 1962. Webb, T. E., & VanDevere, C_ A. Sex difference in the expression of depression: A developmental interaction effect. Sex Roles, 1985, 12, 91-95_