The Impact of Gender and Intercultural Experiences on Emotion Recognition

This study investigated the differences among U.S. undergraduate college students' ability to recognize facially expressed emotions, their gender, and their amount of international travel experience. Two-hundred and ten students viewed photographs of Japanese and Caucasian-American facially expressed emotions. Participants provided information on their perceptions of the emotions, perceived intensity of the emotions, their international (outside the U.S.) travel experiences, and demographic data. Results indicated that women exhibited higher rates of emotion recognition than men, but international travel experience did not impact emotion recognition rates for either women or men. All the participants recognized Caucasian-American faces at higher rates than Japanese faces. In addition, students rated Japanese posers' expressions as more intense than Caucasian-American posers' expressions. Results are discussed in relation to prior research findings on the influence of gender and international travel experience on the ability to recognize emotions as well as implications for conducting research with non-U.S. populations. Suggestions for how to improve future research projects also are provided.