Gender differences in emotional management are more closely related to which factors

At present, there is no absolute single determining factor. Both innate physiological basis and acquired social disciplines play a role. However, in recent years, more and more empirical studies have shown that acquired gender role expectations have a much greater impact on such differences than innate physiological differences.

Studies supporting innate factors have actually been conducted for a long time. In neuroscience experiments, subjects of different genders were shown pictures of sad and angry emotions of the same intensity. On average, women's amygdala activation was about 14% higher than that of men. The response speed of the prefrontal cortex, which controls impulsive emotions, was also slower. This is the physiological basis for many people's belief that "girls are more emotional."

But if you take this as the essence, you will go astray. I have been a volunteer in a community emotional counseling public welfare project for two years, and I have come into contact with too many cases where the opposite is true. Last month I met a young couple who had a conflict. The boy is a primary school teacher. He is usually very emotionally stable. When they argue, he never throws things and yells at people. Instead, he takes the initiative to help his girlfriend solve the problem. ； Girls work as project supervisors. They are usually very busy, and when they are in a hurry, they talk so fast that they can't get a word in. When it comes to the speed at which emotions rise, girls are much stronger than boys.

If you think about the disciplines you have received since childhood, you will understand. As soon as a little girl learns to speak, parents will say, "Little girls should be gentle and not yell." If they fall in pain and want to cry, they will be coaxed. "Good baby, don't cry. If you cry, it won't look good."”； When a little boy falls and squats on the ground and sheds tears, the parents' first reaction is usually, "A man bleeds but doesn't shed tears, so why cry when it hurts?" If he loses his temper and throws things, the boy will be laughed at and say, "This kid has quite a temper, he looks like a man." For the same emotional expression, the feedback received since childhood is very different. Over time, it will naturally solidify into the "gender difference" in everyone's impression.

Of course, there are still some scholars who insist that physiological differences are the core, but the data from cross-cultural studies are very illustrative - in the Nordic countries with the top five gender equality indexes, the gender gap in emotional management is 42% smaller than in some Middle Eastern countries with gender equality rankings at the bottom. If the differences are really all innate, there shouldn't be such a big regional difference, right? To put it bluntly, there is no such thing as "girls are emotionally sensitive" or "boys just can't express themselves". Most of them are just habits taught by society since childhood.