Gender differences in parents' perceptions of their adult children's and their families' emotional expressivity

Abstract

Using a recently published self report measure of emotional expressivity (EES; Kring et al., 1994) and a measure of family expressiveness, we investigated gender differences in ratings of individual and family emotional expressivity. Participants included 27 undergraduate men and 80 undergraduate women who completed self report inventories of their own and their families' emotional expressivity. Mothers and fathers of participants used the same instruments to rate their children's, their own and their families' overall expressivity. Both mothers and fathers were more in agreement with their daughters on the daughters' emotional expressivity and the overall family expressivity than they were with their sons. Parents' ratings were uncorrelated with their sons' ratings of these variables. However, mothers and fathers differed with their offspring in the assessment of the level of positive and negative emotion in the family. For both male and female children, mothers' ratings of positive, but not negative, emotion were correlated with children's ratings. The opposite pattern was apparent for fathers. Fathers' ratings of negative, but not positive emotion in the family were correlated with both sons' and daughters' ratings.