The attribution of aggression and grief to body movements: The effect of sex‐stereotypes

Forty‐two adult subjects, 21 male and 21 female, were asked to rate 16 distinct movement expressions as to their expressiveness of aggression and grief. Each movement expressed anger or grief at one of four levels of diagnosticity. Of each movement two performances were selected, one by a male, the other by a female encoder. With higher levels of diagnosticity, higher ratings were given. The male encoder was rated higher in aggression than the female with movements at a high or moderate level of aggression, and lower than the female with movements at the lowest levels of diagnosticity. The female encoder was rated higher in grief than the male at all levels of diagnosticity.