Do anxious boys and girls differ in emotion recognition accuracy?

INTRODUCTION Difficulty recognizing emotions may contribute to childhood anxiety and anxiety-related social difficulties. METHODS We examined the relationship between gender and emotion recognition accuracy in children with and without anxiety disorders. RESULTS Gender did not predict emotion recognition accuracy except for disgust. DISCUSSION Disgust recognition was significantly less accurate in clinically anxious girls than in clinically anxious boys. There was also a trend towards anxious girls being less accurate than non-anxious girls in recognizing disgust.