This study utilizes a contextual perspective to exam whether gender differences in emotional expressions are stable across interpersonal contexts. A questionnaire survey was adopted in this study, and a total of 605 university students (305 males and 300 females) participated. The results were as follows: (1) Females reported expressing positive emotions such as happiness, love, gratitude, and respect more frequently than males across four situations. (2) Females reported expressing fear and guilty more frequently than males when with a familiar person in public or private, but no significant gender difference was found in situations with an unfamiliar person. Females expressed more sadness than males only in private with a familiar person. Moreover, males reported more shame expressions than females when interacting with an unfamiliar person. (3) Males reported expressing more anger, disgust, contempt, jealousy, pride, and hubris to an unfamiliar person in public or private than females, whereas females expressed more anger and disgust to familiar persons than males. As noted above, the findings indicated that gender differences in emotional expressions vary by emotions and interpersonal contexts.
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