Gender differences in interoceptive accuracy and emotional ability: An explanation for incompatible findings

Most theories of emotion describe a crucial role for interoceptive accuracy, the perception of the body’s internal physiological signals, in emotional experience. Despite support for interoceptive accuracy’s role in emotion, findings of gender differences in emotional and interoceptive processing ar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews 2022-10, Vol.141, p.104808-104808, Article 104808
Main Authors: Prentice, Freya, Hobson, Hannah, Spooner, Ria, Murphy, Jennifer
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Emotion
Emotion recognition
Gender differences
Interoception
Interoceptive accuracy
Sex differences
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Summary:Most theories of emotion describe a crucial role for interoceptive accuracy, the perception of the body’s internal physiological signals, in emotional experience. Despite support for interoceptive accuracy’s role in emotion, findings of gender differences in emotional and interoceptive processing are incompatible with theory; women typically show poorer interoceptive accuracy, but women often outperform men on measures of emotional processing and recognition. This suggests a need to re-evaluate the relationship between interoceptive accuracy and emotion considering sex and gender. Here we extend Pennebaker and Roberts’ (1992) theory of gender differences in the use of interoceptive signals for emotional experience, proposing that language socialisation may result in gender differences in the propensity to label internal state changes as physiological or emotional, respectively. Despite outstanding questions concerning the fractionation of interoceptive and emotional domains, this theory provides a plausible explanation for seemingly incompatible findings of gender differences in interoceptive and emotional abilities. •Theories of emotion ascribe a key role for interoceptive accuracy in emotion.•Gender differences have been found in emotional ability and interoceptive accuracy.•These conflict with theories linking interoceptive accuracy and emotion ability.•Men and women may rely on more physiological and situational cues, respectively.•Language socialisation may lead to gender differences in internal state labelling.
ISSN:0149-7634
1873-7528
DOI:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104808