Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2009 - Volume 32, Issue 05  

Open Peer Commentary

A social-cognitive model of human behavior offers a more parsimonious account of emotional expressivity

Vivian Zayasa1, Joshua A. Tabaka2, Gül Günaydýna1 and Jeanne M. Robertsona3

a1 Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-7601. vz29@cornell.edu gg294@cornell.edu http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~pac_lab/

a2 Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. tabak@u.washington.edu

a3 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, Moscow, Idaho, 83844-3051. jmrobertson@uidaho.edu

Abstract

According to socio-relational theory, men and women encountered different ecologies in their evolutionary past, and, as a result of different ancestral selection pressures, they developed different patterns of emotional expressivity that have persisted across cultures and large human evolutionary time scales. We question these assumptions, and propose that social-cognitive models of individual differences more parsimoniously account for sex differences in emotional expressivity.

Related Articles

  • A socio-relational framework of sex differences in the expression of emotion