SynthesisPsychological bulletin2013
Gender differences in emotion expression in children: a meta-analytic review.
Synthesis in Psychological bulletin, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 373 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
373 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Emotion regulation and mental health across cultures: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Nature human behaviour · 2025Pooled it
- A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2025Pooled it
- When Being Bad Feels Good: A Systematic Review of the Relationship Between Positive Emotion and Antisocial Behavior in Children and Adolescents.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2024Pooled it
- Perception of Social and Educational Quality of Life of Minors Diagnosed with Rare Diseases: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- The Relationship between Emotion Regulation (ER) and Problematic Smartphone Use (PSU): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Positive affect predicts enhanced quality of life and glycemic outcomes in adolescents with type 1 diabetes.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2026Trial
- The effect of music and white noise on patients' anxiety and pain during surgery for impacted mandibular third molar: a single-blind randomized controlled trial.European journal of medical research · 2025Trial
- The impact of animated video cartoons as a distraction technique on anticipatory anxiety levels among children during class I GIC restoration procedures.European archives of paediatric dentistry : official journal of the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry · 2024Trial
- Comprehensive Prevention: An Evaluation of Peripheral Outcomes of a School-based Prevention Program.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2023Trial
- Parenting in Moments: An Ecological Momentary Assessment of Parenting and Adolescent Substance Use and Externalizing Behaviors.Social development (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Exploring the role of negative urgency in body dissatisfaction in young adults.Journal of health psychology · 2026Article
- Parental brain responses to own and unknown children's emotional facial expressions: An fMRI study.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Mapping emotion regulation profiles in adolescence and examining their associations with mental health outcomes.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- The expression of self-conscious emotions and their motivational and communicative function in early development.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Review
- The Vicious Cycle Between Parental Psychological Control and Depressive Symptoms Among Chinese Early Adolescents: Highlighting the Mediating Role of Positivity and Sex Differences.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2026Article
- Peer victimization and school refusal tendencies in early adolescence: A random intercept cross-lagged panel model analysis.Journal of research on adolescence : the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence · 2026Article
- School Bullying, Self-Esteem, and Emotional Intelligence Among Primary Education Students: A Gender-Based Pretest Analysis from a School Nursing Perspective.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Friendship Quality in Children With ADHD Seeking Treatment for Peer Problems: A Comparison of Boy-Boy, Girl-Girl, and Mixed-Gender Dyads.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2026Article
- Longitudinal associations between violence exposure and adolescent conduct problems in a high-adversity, South African setting.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Sex-specific associations of childhood adversity with frontostriatal network organization and anhedonia in young adulthood.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
313 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Emotion expression is an important feature of healthy child development that has been found to show gender differences. However, there has been no empirical review of the literature on gender and facial, vocal, and behavioral expressions of different types of emotions in children. The present study constitutes a comprehensive meta-analytic review of gender differences and moderators of differences in emotion expression from infancy through adolescence. We analyzed 555 effect sizes from 166 studies with a total of 21,709 participants. Significant but very small gender differences were found overall, with girls showing more positive emotions (g = -.08) and internalizing emotions (e.g., sadness, anxiety, sympathy; g = -.10) than boys, and boys showing more externalizing emotions (e.g., anger; g = .09) than girls. Notably, gender differences were moderated by age, interpersonal context, and task valence, underscoring the importance of contextual factors in gender differences. Gender differences in positive emotions were more pronounced with increasing age, with girls showing more positive emotions than boys in middle childhood (g = -.20) and adolescence (g = -.28). Boys showed more externalizing emotions than girls at toddler/preschool age (g = .17) and middle childhood (g = .13) and fewer externalizing emotions than girls in adolescence (g = -.27). Gender differences were less pronounced with parents and were more pronounced with unfamiliar adults (for positive emotions) and with peers/when alone (for externalizing emotions). Our findings of gender differences in emotion expression in specific contexts have important implications for gender differences in children's healthy and maladaptive development.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.