Original title: Gender Differences in Emotional Sharing: Reconsidering the Role of Traditional Femininity/masculinity
Jia, X. (Xihan), Kleiboer, A.M. (AM), Karen Holtmaat, Sander L. Koole · September 2026
On average, men share their emotions less readily than women do. People often assume that traditional masculinityTraits like being tough, independent, and emotionally restrained, often associated with men. is what holds men back from opening up. Researchers decided to test this common idea. They surveyed thousands of adults to see whether traditional masculinity or traditional femininityTraits like being warm, caring, and emotionally open, often associated with women. explains why men and women talk about feelings differently. They found that differences in traditional femininity partly explained why women share their emotions more. Surprisingly, traditional masculinity did not explain the gap at all. The same pattern showed up when looking at the stigma around getting help and people's actual intentions to seek mental healthcare. Rather than masculinity stopping men from showing vulnerability, levels of femininity played the real role in whether people shared their feelings.
Imagine two friends deciding whether to talk about a tough day. One friend is expected to be open, the other is expected to be tough. The common belief is that the second friend's toughness stops them from sharing. Here, the researchers found that it is not the toughness but the lack of openness in the first friend's expected role that actually matters. In this paper, the expected openness corresponds to traditional femininity, and the expected toughness corresponds to traditional masculinity. The results show that the difference in sharing is explained by how much someone identifies with the openness role, not the toughness role.
This challenges the common belief that traditional masculinity is the main barrier to men's emotional expression and mental health help-seeking. Instead, it suggests that the lack of traditional femininity—traits like warmth and emotional openness—plays a larger role. Understanding this could reshape how we approach men's mental health, shifting focus from 'toxic masculinity' to promoting emotional openness for everyone.
The abstract reports that traditional femininity only partially explains gender differences, meaning other factors are at play. The studies were conducted with Dutch adults, so results may not generalize to other cultures. The research is correlational and does not establish that femininity causes differences in sharing. Additionally, the measures used (DDI, NSIV, BSRI) rely on self-report, which may not capture actual behavior.
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Gender Differences in Emotional Sharing: Reconsidering the Role of Traditional Femininity/masculinity — Jia, X. (Xihan), Kleiboer, A.M. (AM), Karen Holtmaat et al. — PsyArXiv — doi:10.31234/osf.io/dpaxg_v2
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.