Is Joy an Emotional Function of Age and Gender?
Downloads
Historically, psychological researches on emotion were focused more on negative emotions. Recently, researchers have directed their attention towards positive emotion because of positive emotions is in crises throughout the globe (Fredrickson et al, 2003). So, it is an emerging field of study, many areas of which are under developed. The present research is aimed at exploring two of such areas: gender and age differences in positive emotions. Because of the suggested importance of studying discrete units of positive emotion, only one emotion i.e. joy was selected for the study. Dispositional Positive Emotion Scale-Joy sub scale was administered on 479 participants (331 men, 148 women), age ranging between 20 and 49. Following two hypotheses were generated: first, women feel lesser joy than men; and second, intensity of joy feeling varies with age. The results were consistent with the first hypothesis. For the second hypothesis, no significant differences are found in the feeling of joy among people belonging to different age groups.
Adler, E.L. (2013). Sex Differences in Positive Emotions within Appraisal Theory. Thesis completed in partial fulfillment of the Honors Program in the Psychological Sciences, 0(0),
Retrieved 2 February, 2016, from https://discoverarchive.vanderbilt.edu/bitstream/handle/1803/5267/adler_erica_archivedthesisFINAL.pdf?sequence=1
Alvi, M.H., Naz, F., Khan, M.M.Q., Mirza, M.H., Ikram, M. & Bux, A. (2016). Analyzing the Pattern of Smoker in Karachi. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 2(7), 387-389
Alvi, M.H., Surani, M. & Hirani, S. (2015). The Effect of Performance Evaluation on Employee’s Job Satisfaction in Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (2013). International Journal of Management Science, 5(5), 340-353
Ashraf, S. (2004). Development and validation of the emotional empathy scale (EES) and the dispositional predictor and potential outcomes of emotional empathy (Doctoral dissertation, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad).
Barrick, A. L., Hutchinson, R. L., & Deckers, L. H. (1989). Age effects on positive and negative emotions. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 4, 421-429.
Birnbaum, D. (1983). Preschoolers’ Stereotypes about Sex Differences in Emotionality: A Reaffirmation. Journal of Genetic Psychology 143:139–40.
Bodas, J., & Ollendick, T. H. (2005). Test anxiety: A cross-cultural perspective. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 8, 65-88.
Brody, L. R., & Hall, J. (1993). Gender and emotion. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (447–461). New York: Guilford Press.
Brody, L. R., & Hall, J. A. (2008). Gender and emotion in context. Handbook of emotions(pp. 395-408).
Brody, L. R., Muderrisoglu, S., & Nakash-Eisikovits, O. (2002). Emotions, defenses, and gender. In R. F. Bornstein & J. M. Masling (Eds.), The psychodynamics of gender and gender role (pp. 203–249). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Caballo, V. E., Salazar, I. C., Irurtia, M. J., Arias, B., Hofmann, S. G., & CISO-A ResearchTeam. (2014). Differences in social anxiety between men and women across 18 countries. Personality and Individual Differences, 64, 35-40.
Cancian, Francesca M. 1987. Love in America: Gender and Self-Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carlson, J. G. & Hatfield, E. (1992). Psychology of emotion. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Carstensen L.L. (1995). Evidence for a life-span theory of socioemotional selectivity. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci., 4, 151–155.
Chaplin, T. M., & Aldao, A. (2013). Gender differences in emotion expression in children: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 735-765.
Charles, S. .T, Reynolds, C. .A & Gatz, M. (2001). Age-Related Differences and Change in Positive and Negative Affect Over 23 Years. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 136-151.
Retrieved 2 February, 2016, from
https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp801136.pdf
Cohn, M. A., Fredrickson, B. L., Brown, S. L., Mikels, J. A., & Conway, A. M. (2009). Happiness upacked: Positive emotions increase life satisfaction by building resilience. Emotion 9(3). 361-368.
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1990). Personality disorders and the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Personality Disorders, 4,362-371.
DeNeve, K. M., & Cooper, H. (1998). The happy personality: A metaanalysis of 137 personality traits and subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 197-229.
Diener, E. (1996). Traits can be powerful, but are not enough: Lesson from subjective well-being. Journal of Research in Personality, 30, 389-399.
Diener, E., & Sun, M. E. (1998). Subjective well-being and age: An international analysis. In K. W. Schaie & M. P. Lawton (Eds.), Annual review of gerontology and geriatrics: Vol. 17. Focus on emotion and adult development (pp. 304-324). New York: Springer.
Diener, E., & Sun, M. E. (1998). Subjective well-being and age: An international analysis. In K. W. Schaie & M. P. Lawton (Eds.), Annual review of gerontology and geriatrics: Vol. 17. Focus on emotion and adult development (pp. 304-324). New York: Springer.
Diener, E., Sandvik, E., & Larsen, R. J. (1985). Age and sex differences for emotional intensity. Developmental Psychology, 21, 542-546.
Domes, G., Schulze, L., Bottger, M., Grossmann, A., Hauenstein, K., Wirtz, P. H. & Herpertz, S. C. (2010). The neural correlates of sex differences in emotional reactivity and emotion regulation. Human Brain Mapping, 31, 758-769.
Ellsworth, P. C., & Smith, C. A. (1988b). Shades of joy: Patterns of appraisal differentiating pleasant emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 2, 301–331
Else-Quest, N. M., Higgins, A., Allison, C., & Morton, L. C. (2012). Gender differences in self-conscious emotional experience: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138, 947-982.
Fischer, A. H. (2004). Gender and Culture Differences in Emotion. Emotion, 4(1), 87–94. Retrieved 2 February, 2016, from http://psych.cf.ac.uk/home2/manstead/2004_F,%20RM,%20vV,%20M,%202004,%20Emotion,%204,%20p87.pdf
Fischer, K. W., Shaver, P. R., & Carnochan, P. (1990). How emotions develop and how they organize development. Cognition and Emotion, 4, 81-127.
Fredrickson, B. L., Tugade, M. M., Waugh, C. E., & Larkin, G. R. (2003). What good are positive emotions in crisis? A prospective study of resilience and emotions following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001. Journal of personality and social psychology, 84(2), 365
Fredrickson, B. (1998). What Good Are Positive Emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300-319
Fredrickson, B. (2004). The Broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. The Philosophical Transaction of Royal Society. 1367-1377
Frey, W. H. (1985). Crying: The mystery of tears. Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press.
Gordon, Steven L. 1981. “The Sociology of Sentiment and Affect.” Pp. 562–92 in Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives, edited by Morris Rosenberg and Ralph H. Turner. New York: Basic Books.
Gross, J. J., Carstensen, L. L., Pasupathi, M., Tsai, J., Skorpen, C. G., & Hsu, A. Y. C. (1997). Emotion and aging: Experience, expression, and control. Psychology and Aging, 12, 590-599.
Hatfield, E, Rapson, R.L & Le, Y. .C. .L. (2009). Ethnic and Gender Differences in Emotional Ideology, Experience, and Expression. University of Hawaii. Retrieved2 February, 2016, from
Hochschild, Arlie R. 1975. “The Sociology of Feeling and Emotion: Selected Possibilities.” Pp. 208–307 in Another Voice: Feminist Perspectives on Social Life and Social Science, edited by M. Millman and R. M. Kantor. New York: Anchor Books.
Jansz, J. (2000). Masculine identity and restrictive emotionality. In A. H. Fischer (Ed.), Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives (pp. 166–188). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Kemper, Theodore D. 1978. A Social Interactional Theory of Emotions. New York:Wiley.
Kring, A. M., & Gordon, A. H. (1998). Sex differences in emotion: expression, experience, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 686-703.
Kunzmann, U., Kupperbusch, C.S., & Levenson, R.W. (2005). Behavioral inhibition and amplification during emotional arousal: a comparison of two age groups. Psychol. Aging., 20(1):144–158.
Labouvie-Vief, G., Hakim-Larson, J., & Bulka, D. (1989). Speaking about feelings: Conceptions of emotions across the life span. Psychol. Aging., 4, 425–437
Lau, A.W., Edelstein, B.A., Larkin, K.T. (2001). Psychophysiological arousal in older adults: a critical review. Clin. Psychol. Rev., 21(4):609–630.
Lawton, M.P., Kleban, M.H., Rajagopal, D., & Dean, J. (1992). Dimensions of affective experience in three age groups. Psychol. Aging., 7(2), 171–184.
Levenson, R.W., Carstensen, L.L., & Gottman, J.M. (1994). The influence of age and gender on affect, physiology, and their interrelations: a study of long-term marriages. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., 67(1):56–68.
Lucas, R. E., & Gohm, C. (2000). Age and sex differences in subjective well-being across cultures. In E. Diener & E. M. Suh (Eds.), Subjective well-being across nations and cultures (291-317). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mather, M., Canli, T., English, T., Whitfield, S., Wais, P., Ochsner, K., Gabrieli, J.D., & Carstensen, L.L. (2004) Amygdala responses to emotionally valenced stimuli in older and younger adults. Psychol. Sci., 15(4):259–263
McLean, C. P., & Anderson, E. R. (2009). Brave men and timid women? A review of the gender differences in fear and anxiety. Clinical Psychology Review, 29, 496-505
McRae, K., Ochsner, K. N., Mauss, I. B., Gabrieli, J. J., & Gross, J. J. (2008). Gender differences in emotion regulation: An fMRI study of cognitive reappraisal. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 11, 143-162.
Mroczek, D. K., & Kolarz, C. M. (1998). The effect of age on positive and negative affect: A developmental perspective on happiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1333-1349.
Neiss et al.. (2009). Age differences in perception and awareness of emotion. Neurobiol Aging, 30(8), Retrieved 2 February, 2016, from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2733236/
Robinson, M.D. & Johnson, J.T. (1997). Is It Emotion or Is It Stress? Gender Stereotypes and the Perception of Subjective Experience. Sex Roles 36:235–58.
Schmitt, D.P. (2015, 10th April). Are Women More Emotional Than Men?. [Weblog].
Retrieved 2 February 2016, from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/201504/are-women-more
Schmitt, D. P., Realo, A., Voracek, M., & Allik, J. (2008). Why can’t a man be more like a woman? Sex differences in Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 168–182
Shields, S. A. (2002). Speaking from the heart: Gender and the social meaning of emotion. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Simon, R.W. & Nath, L. E. (2004). Gender and Emotion in the United States: Do Men and Women Differ in Self-Reports of Feelings and Expressive Behavior?.American Journal of Sociology, 109(5), 1137–76.
Retrieved 2 February, 2016, from http://users.wfu.edu/simonr/pdfs/Simon%20&%20Nath%20AJS%202004.pdf
Smith, D.P., Hillman, C.H., & Duley, A.R. (2005). Influences of age on emotional reactivity during picture processing. J. Gerontol. B Psychol. Sci. Soc. Sci, 60(1):P49–56
Sprecher, S. (1985). Emotions in close relationships. Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation (Sociology). University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
Stacey, C. A., & Gatz, M. (1991). Cross-sectional age differences and longitudinal change on the Bradburn Affect Balance Scale. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 46, 76-78.
Stone, A., Schwartz, J., Broderick, J., & Deaton, A. (2010). A snapshot of the age distribution of psychological well-being in the United States Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (22), 9985-9990
(DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1003744107).
Retrieved from: http://the-mouse-trap.com/2010/06/09/positive-emotions-increase-with-old-age-while-negative-emotions-decline/
Tsai, J.L., Levenson, R.W., & Carstensen, L.L. (2000). Autonomic, subjective, and expressive responses to emotional films in older and younger Chinese Americans and European Americans. Psychol. Aging, 15(4):684–693.
Vaux, A., & Meddin, J. (1987). Positive and negative life change and positive and negative affect among the rural elderly. Journal of Community Psychology, 15, 447-458.
Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., Cornelius, R. R., Van Heck, G. L., & Becht, M. C. (2000). Adult crying: A model and review of the literature. Review of General Psychology, 4, 354–377.
Wong, M. M. & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). Affiliation motivation and daily experience: Some issues on gender differences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 60(1). 154- 164.
All Content should be original and unpublished.
