Women feel more intense emotions

The softer side

The study also analysed how emotions impact the recurrence of conflicts, reports the journal Intervencion Psicosocial.

It found that men mostly express “powerful emotions” as wrath or contempt, causing conflicts more frequently. A sample of 142 students, 75 women and 67 men from the University of Granada, Spain, participated in the study, led by professors Inmaculada Valor Segura and Francisca Exposito y Miguel Moya, from its department of social psychology.

They were placed in five different conflictive situations. In general terms, the results showed that men and women have different emotions in conflictive situations, according to a Granada statement.

Thus, when facing a situation where “my partner offends me or treats me disrespectfully”, women felt miserable, while in the situation “if my partner is physically aggressive during an argument” women felt more disappointed than men.

In the situation “my partner shouts at me with frequency”, women felt more sadness, while men felt guilt. In the situation “if my partner distorts an argument to be right” women feel sadness, while men feel embarrassment.

As the research authors state, one could expect men to express more domineering or “powerful” emotions as wrath, anger or contempt, and women to have more submissive attitudes, guilt, sadness or fear.

The results have proved that women feel more intense emotions, both powerful and non-powerful.