Personality traits and sex differences in emotion recognition among African Americans and Caucasians.

This study investigated the role of personality traits and sex differences in emotion recognition. In several studies using samples with mostly young Caucasian and Asian students, Matsumoto et al.1 found strong evidence that recognition of emotional expression in faces was related to openness to experience and, to a lesser extent, conscientiousness. Openness is one of the major dimensions of the five-factor model2 (FFM) of personality that might play an important role in the recognition of emotion. Open individuals tend to be intellectually curious, imaginative, and sensitive to aesthetics and inner feelings. The present study seeks to replicate Matsumoto et al. and extend the findings to an older African American and an older Caucasian sample. Furthermore, this study tests whether the relation between personality traits and emotion recognition can be replicated with a purely verbal task. Finally, the hypothesis that women tend to be better than men in decoding facial expressions of emotion will be tested.