Sex differences in social cognition responses are associated with peer network structures and ethnic backgrounds

Research on social cognition is largely comprised of self-reported judgments and impressions about internal and external information. Both verbal and nonverbal behaviors are subject to stylistic biases in how people express themselves, often confounding the ability to reliably measure (non-communicative) cognitive processes and mechanisms. Gender differences and ethnicity-related differences in communicative styles are well established, and they have the potential to influence basic findings in social psychological studies. For example, males have a tendency to express higher levels of gestures that convey the impression of empowerment and independence and hence conventional representations of "dominance" (e.g., inflated self-concepts, direct and boisterous vocal prosody, lower empathy, physical aggression, and selfishness). Females instead express higher levels of behaviors that convey vulnerability and appeasement and hence conventional representations of 'submissiveness' (e.g., depreciated self-concepts, mimicry, empathy, attentiveness, and heightened pain sensitivity). Ethnic differences in verbal and nonverbal behaviors have also been documented and these and the gender-related distinctions have been linked to group differences in peer network structures and social interaction styles. In this chapter we examine the possibility that prototypical gender differences and ethnic differences in expressive styles are evident in how males and females and people from differing ethnic backgrounds respond to facial expression judgment tasks. In an initial study, we observed sex differences in facial expression judgments, along with differences in the structure and behavioral intimacy of peer networks; males were more likely to describe ambiguous facial stimuli using emotion terms that connote the impression of dominance (e.g., anger, joy), whereas females described the faces using more submissive terms (e.g., sadness, fear). Moreover, the size of individuals' peer networks moderated the relationship between biological sex and facial judgment biases. In a second study, using different facial stimuli, we found that only females with exclusively Hispanic/Latin, but not Caucasian ethnic backgrounds, used more submissive emotion terms to describe ambiguous facial stimuli. These findings may have implications for implicit, sex-linked biases in facial expression judgments across various domestic, research, and clinical environments.