Ethnic and Gender Differences in Emotional Ideology, Experience, and Expression

How universal are men and women’s attitudes toward the expression of emotion? How similar are the emotions that men and women from various ethnic groups experience and express in their close love relationships? In this study, 144 men and 307 women of European, Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, and Japanese ancestry were asked about their ideologies as to how people ought to deal with strong emotions in close relationships, how often they themselves felt a variety of emotions, and how they dealt with such feelings in close relationships. Finally, they were asked how satisfied they were with their close relationships. Men and women appeared to possess different emotional ideologies. Women tended to favor direct expression of emotion; men to favor emotional management. People of Chinese, European, Filipino, Hawaiian, and Japanese ancestry also possessed different ideologies as to how people ought to deal with strong emotions in intimate relationships.