Caun and King 1

Abstract
There are differences in nonverbal behaviors among males and females. The present study
examined whether females are more accurate in decoding nonverbal emotional displays than
males. Twenty male and female college students were assessed on their accuracy of decoding
nonverbal emotional displays. The results demonstrated that females were more accurate in
decoding nonverbal emotional displays from a female model, but the study was not significantly
different.
SEX DIFFERENCES IN THE ACCURACY OF INTERPRETING NONVERBAL CUES
An Experimental Study
Sarah King and Samantha Caun
Slippery Rock University
Dr. James Laux
Slippery Rock University
While it is generally recognized that there are differences in nonverbal communication
patterns for males and females, most studies are based on encoding rather than decoding.
Females are perceived better at encoding nonverbal behaviors than males. There is not much
proof about females being as good in decoding nonverbal behaviors. Nonverbal behaviors are
elements of communication aside from words that transfer messages. The purpose of the present
study is to examine whether females are more accurate in decoding nonverbal emotional displays
than males. Emotional displays are conveying feelings through facial expressions and body
language.
Bente, Donaghy and Suwelack (1998) found that men were more active and women were
more visually attentive during dyadic interactions based on familiarity and unfamiliarity of other
research participants through a three factorial design. Measures of nonverbal interaction were
eye contact and body movement. The familiarity aspect was most influential to the studys
results. Knofler and Imhof found that during dyadic communication there is an influence on
sexual orientation and nonverbal behavior. The results of the study showed that homosexuals
displayed different nonverbal behaviors than heterosexuals. Nonverbal behaviors included selftouch, body posture, body position and eye contact. Seddon and Pedrosa found that during oral
testing with and without teachers presence, nonverbal effects such as appearance and body
language influence the scores. Results showed that the assessments of oral testing where the
student was face to face with the examiner received higher scores than on the assessment of oral
testing where the examiner was out-of-site to the student. Hugenburg and Sczesny (2006) found
that both of the experiments they executed show that the happy nonverbal facial expressions
were decoded faster and more accurate on female faces than on males. Hess, Blairy, and Kelck
(2000) discovered in their research that the sex and ethnicity of the encoder impacted the
dominance of the observers ratings. This was tested with three groups each of a different
ethnicity. Helwig-Larsen, Cunningham, Carrico and Pergram found that women nodded more
than men during classroom interactions and participants nodded to professors more than to peers
which proves that status and sex influences nonverbal behavior. Mikkelson, Farinelli, and La
Valley (2006) found that brain dominance and sex collaborate to impact body language and the
control of emotions. This was found by tasking subjects with answering questionnaires given by
their performance. Schmid, Schmid, Bombari, and Mast (2011) discovered in their research that

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local priming benefited the accuracy of nonverbal decoding compared to the control group. In
this study males were impacted by local priming and females were not impacted significantly.
Briton and Hall found accuracy when dealing with perceived nonverbal beliefs of men and
women. The perceptions were consistent with the research findings. Kruger, Sokolov, Enck,
Krageloh-Mann, Pavlova and Lappe (2013) found that male participants were more prominent in
discerning happiness portrayed by female actors better than female participants. However,
females surpassed males in the ability to recognize hostility and anger exhibited by the male
actors. Male and female subjects were given point-light visuals of a human figure in efforts to
determine which emotion the individual was conveying. The hypothesis tested in this
experiment is that males and females interpret body language in different ways.
In this study we examine accuracy in decoding nonverbal emotional displays (through
only body language, not facial expression) by biological sex. Since females are perceived better
at encoding their emotions through verbal and nonverbal behaviors, females will be more
accurate in decoding emotional displays. Specifically, we hypothesized that females are more
accurate in decoding nonverbal emotional displays than males.
Method
Subjects
Twenty students (10 males, 10 females) participated in this experiment. The selection of the
research participants was based on a convenience sample, anyone we knew who was available
was asked to participate in the experiment voluntarily. A female actor participated in this
experiment, based on a convenience sample and was informed about the purpose of the study and
was given instructions on how to display the emotions through only body language.
Design and Experimental Task
The study was a single factor 2 group design. The experiment consisted of having each research
participant guess what emotion was being displayed by the female actor. Researchers
determined the correct answers of emotions for the study. The correct answers for the each
emotion are presented in Appendix 1.

Appendix 1: Correct answers of each emotion displayed by actor

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Dependent Measures
The dependent variable is the number of correct
answers on the emotional displays assessment.
Procedure
Researchers took note on participants sex by dividing them into groups within the
research study and then asking them to arrive at separate times according to sex. Participants
arrived at separate times according to sex. Participants were seated at tables in the Smith Student
Center. In the front of the room, a white backdrop was placed behind the actor. The actor
displayed only 10 of the 15 different emotions listed below, only through body language (not
facial expressions) during 30 second intervals. The 10 different emotions that the actor displayed
were happy, sad, fear, surprise, anger, insecure, pride, relaxed, confusion and pain. Research
participants were given an assessment. The 5 additional emotions provided on the assessment
were anxious, embarrassment, curious, envy and love. The assessment used during the study is
presented in Appendix 2.
The actor took position and the study began. The actor displayed the emotions in
alphabetical order. Research participants were instructed that once an answer was written, they
were not permitted to change that answer during any time throughout the study. If answer(s)
were changed, participant would be disqualified from study. After introduction to the study and
distribution of papers, research participants will be instructed to write down one of the 15 listed
emotions while viewing the emotion displayed by the actor. After the study was complete, we
compared the number of correct responses for each participant and compared the scores for male
and female research participants through descriptive statistical analysis. After each study, the
participants received a debriefing of the research experiment.

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Appendix 2: Emotional displays assessment

Results

Independent Variables
Sex of participant is the independent variable in this study. Sex of the model was another
independent variable in this study.
Test of Hypothesis
In order to test the hypothesis, descriptive statistics were used. The descriptive statistics that
were used were measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion. The results are
presented in Table 1 and demonstrate visual displays of data for male and female accuracy during
each research study.
Table 1: Number of correct emotions and percentage, mean, median, mode and range through
descriptive statistical analysis for males and females

Ordered NumbersFemales:
Males:

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The hypothesis stated that females are more accurate in decoding nonverbal emotional displays
than males; this hypothesis was supported. The difference between the means of correct answers
for males and females was .4.
In order to test the hypothesis for on a wider scale. inferential statistics were used by conducting
an independent sample T-Test. The results of the T-Test are presented in Table 2 and demonstrate
the differences between the two independent groups.
Table 2: Independent sample T-Test for Accuracy of answers in assessment of emotions for
males and females

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The hypothesis stated that females are more accurate in decoding nonverbal emotional displays
than males; this hypothesis was not supported. The calculated value of t was .723 and the critical
value at .05 significance level (two tailed test) was 2.086. The calculated value does not meet
the critical value, so the null hypothesis must be accepted. This conducts a type 2 error because
the statistical test was not significant, but the data does not provide strong evidence that the null
hypothesis is false. This is due to there being too few research participants during each study.
Discussion
The goal of our study was to determine whether sex had an influence on how well a person can
decode nonverbal behavior. We hypothesized that females are more accurate in decoding
nonverbal emotional displays than males. In contrast to the current literature, the outcome of the
present study suggests that females are better at decoding nonverbal behavior than males.
Limitations in this study include the lack of time we had to execute the study and conduct
research. Furthermore, too few research participants could have potentially impacted the results
of this study. With more research participants, our hypothesis could have proven more
significant instead of being based on chance and increases the validity and reliability of the
research study.

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Another limitation in this study is that we used only a female actor instead of both sexes for
displaying nonverbal emotions. This could have influenced the decoding of body language for
male and females. In addition, researchers should gain more knowledge on if there are significant
differences in sex and nonverbal emotional displays.
Suggestions include, researchers and scholars with better expertise on defining nonverbal
emotional displays for the research study assessment to increase validity. We also suggest using
both male and female actors when replicating this study. Using both male and female actors
could potentially influence the results by providing research participants with diversity and thus
increasing validity.
An interesting finding of this research experiment was the frequency of each emotional display
that most research participants got correct according to sex. This was calculated and is presented
in Table 3. The most frequent emotions that male research participants in this study got correct
are pain, pride and anger. The most frequent emotions that female research participants got
correct are pain and surprised. More research on the reason why each sex got various emotions
correct would be a suggestion for future research.
Table 3: Frequency of each emotion that research participants got correct

References
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Briton, N. J., & Hall, J. A. (1995). Beliefs about Female and Male Nonverbal Communication.
Sex Roles, 32(1/2), 79-90. Retrieved from the Academic Search Complete (EBSCO Host)
database.

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Helweg-Larsen, Marie, Cunningham, Stephanie J., Carrico, Amanda, & Pergram, Alison M.
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