Gender Effects in Decoding Nonverbal Cues

This article summarizes results of 7S studies that reported accuracy for males and females at decoding nonverbal communication. The following attributes of the studies were coded: year, sample size, age of judges, sex of stimulus person(s), age of stimulus person(s), and the medium and channel of communication (e.g., photos of facial expressions, filtered speech). These attributes were examined in relation to three outcome indices: direction of effect, effect size (in SD units), and significance level. Results showed that more studies showed female advantage than would occur by chance, the average effect was of moderate magnitude and was significantly larger than zero, and more studies reached a conventional level of significance than would be expected by chance. The gender effect for visual-plus-auditory studies was significantly larger than for visual-only and auditory-only studies. The magnitude of the gender effect did not vary reliably with sample size, age of judges, sex of stimulus person(s), or age of stimulus person(s).