EXAM BLOCK 3 READING

GROUP I ENGLISH II
Ade Mega Utami 121107088
Dimas Rizqi 121107108
Rasya Nafila 121107004
Syafa Athya 121107055
PSIKOLOGI
UNIVERSITAS PARAMADINA

Topic Differences between the genders in emotional

regulation
Authors  Kateri McRae, Stanford University
 Kevin N. Ochsner, Columbia University
 Iris B. Mauss, University of Denver
 John J. D. Gabrieli, and Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
 James J. Gross Stanford University

Year 2008

Title Gender Differences in Emotion Regulation: An

fMRI Study of Cognitive Reappraisal

Name of the article Group Process Intergroup Relat. Author

manuscript.

Volume/page   11(2): 143–162

Summary
Research background The literature on the cognitive bases of emotion
regulation is remarkably quiet regarding gender
differences, despite strong popular conceptions
of gender differences in emotionality and
significant gender differences in the occurrence
of disorders thought to include adjustment
disorder.
Research purpose/ research The present study addresses critical gaps in the
questions literature by investigating gender differences in
emotional reactivity and regulation
 The research questions are as follows:
 What are the unique contributions of
emotion and emotion regulation
 What are the participants’ emotional
experiences

Research methods The researchers used fMRI to examine gender

  differences in emotional reactivity and emotion
regulation using cognitive reappraisal.

Result and discussion/conclusion
They found that men and women did not differ
on measures of emotional reactivity. In
addition, both genders reported comparable
decreases in negative experiences when using
cognitive reappraisal. However, men showed
greater decreases in amygdala activity during
regulation, along with lesser control-related
prefrontal activity during cognitive regulation.
Women showed greater ventral striatal activity
during cognitive regulation than men.
These findings prompted us to look at two
theories for their explanations: (1) men are
better at using cognitive regulation than
women, and (2) women use positive affect more
effectively than men to downregulate negative
affect. Although it is too soon to know which of
these explanations—if either—is true, we think
that any investigation of gender variations in
emotional responding would benefit from
taking into account both emotional reactivity
and regulation.

Review
 
After reading this article, we no longer hold the preconceived notion that men react
more emotionally to positive and furious stimuli than women do. Men and women did
not differ on emotional reaction measures, though. Additionally, when using cognitive
reappraisal, equal decreases in negative sensations were reported by both genders. In
contrast to women, men showed less control-related prefrontal activity and greater
amygdala decreases during cognitive regulation. Women showed greater ventral
ventral striatum activity during cognitive regulation than did men. Finally, this widely
read piece has successfully changed our perspective. 
These comes about driven us to look at two clarifications of these discoveries, to be specific (1)
that men are able to utilize cognitive control with less exertion than ladies and (2)
that ladies utilize positive affect within the benefit of down-regulating negative influence to
a more noteworthy degree than men. It is as well early to tell whether one or both of
these clarifications is redress, but be that as it may this turns out, we accept that
any investigation of sex contrasts in passionate reacting would do well to consider
both enthusiastic reactivity and regulation.