Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 17, 2026

Peering into the Dynamics of Social Interactions: Measuring Play Fighting in Rats
Published on: January 18, 2013
The confounded nature of angry men and happy women
D Vaughn Becker1, Douglas T Kenrick, Steven L Neuberg
1Applied Psychology Program, Arizona State University at the Polytechnic Campus, Mesa, AZ 85212, USA. vaughn.becker@asu.edu
Abstract:
Findings of 7 studies suggested that decisions about the sex of a face and the emotional expressions of anger or happiness are not independent: Participants were faster and more accurate at detecting angry expressions on male faces and at detecting happy expressions on female faces. These findings were robust across different stimulus sets and judgment tasks and indicated bottom-up perceptual processes rather than just top-down conceptually driven ones. Results from additional studies in which neutrally expressive faces were used suggested that the connections between masculine features and angry expressions and between feminine features and happy expressions might be a property of the sexual dimorphism of the face itself and not merely a result of gender stereotypes biasing the perception.
Related Concept Videos
Jealousy in Romantic Relationships
Horney's Sociocultural Approach
Aggression
Criticisms of the Evolutionary Perspective
Evolutionary psychology provides one explanation for these findings, suggesting...
Relationship Formation
Cognitive Theories: Schachter-Singer Theory of Emotion
Physiological Arousal and Cognitive Labeling
According to this theory, when an individual experiences physiological...

