Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to study the role of personality and gender differences in decoding nonverbal cues of emotion. One hundred and sixty undergraduate students, 80 males and 80 females were classified as either higher or lower in Neuroticism. Then they were randomly assigned to one of 4 experimental conditions: high neuroticism-male, high neuroticismfemale, low neuroticismmale, and low neuroticismfemale. Participants were asked to watch the videotape displaying facial expressions and gesture of emotion including happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, and anger, and to identify the emotional state of each display. Results show that: 1. High in neuroticism individuals are better able to decode nonverbal cues of emotion than those low in neuroticism (p < .001). 2. Women are better able to decode nonverbal cues of emotion than males (p < .05).