Effect of gender stereotypes and tears on level of participant personal distress

Abstract

Tears shed from one individual can convey sadness, distress and many other emotions to another individual (perceiver). Study 1 in this paper examines if seeing another individual in tears would cause the perceiver themselves to experience feelings of personal distress. In Study 1, participants had to view faces with or without tears and participant personal distress were measured. In addition, gender stereotypes have been known to affect emotion recognition. Study 2 investigates if gender stereotypes would interact with tears to influence personal distress in the perceiver. In study 2, participants had to read a passage containing information about traditional or non-traditional social roles of females that primed for traditional or non-traditional social roles gender stereotypes. After reading the passage, participants had to view faces with or with no tears and participant personal distress was also measured. In general, viewing a face with tears did not cause a higher level of participant personal distress. Traditional social roles gender stereotypes and tears together did not induce a higher level of participant personal distress. Keywords: Social roles gender stereotypes, Traditional social roles, Non-traditional social roles, Tears