Does Your Social Class Affect Your Ability to Read Others’ Emotions?

Research is finding that people who report being lower in social class tend to be better at reading others' emotions than people who report being higher in social class. As for why, some researchers have suggested that lower social class people have less control over their lives and are more dependent on others for reaching their goals. In turn, they are more likely to pay attention to what others are thinking and feeling.

It's also well known that women tend to be better than men at reading others' emotions. We aren't exactly sure why this is the case, but one can think of both biological and social factors. For example, girls are usually taught from a young age to be more sensitive to others' emotions than boys. It may also be the case that parts of the brain associated with emotion recognition are different in men and women.

Looking at Gender and Social Class Together

What do we learn when looking at both social class and gender in relation to emotion recognition skills?  

In our first study, we measured social class by asking participants where they felt they belonged on the social hierarchy compared to everyone else in the United States. To measure their emotion recognition skills, they saw black and white pictures of people's eyes, and had to indicate which of four emotions best represented what the person was feeling. We asked them to do the same thing for short-moving clips of faces in color.

In line with previous research, we found that lower social class people tended to score higher on emotion recognition than higher social class people. However, when we looked at the results separately for men and women, we found that this was only true for men. In other words, lower social class men tended to be better at emotion recognition than higher social class men, but women tended to have similar scores regardless of their social class. Additionally, women were only better at emotion recognition than men when they were higher in social class. There were no differences between men and women at lower levels of social class.

We confirmed these findings in a separate study that used the same measures as our original study. Again, the negative association between social class and emotion recognition skills only applied to men, and women only outperformed men at higher levels of social class.

Why Is the Effect of Social Class Different for Men and Women?

So why is social class related to emotion recognition in men but not women? We have a few ideas. Other researchers have suggested that people who report being higher in social class have more control over their life outcomes and can freely pursue their goals without depending on others. In turn, this increased independence makes them less likely to pay attention to others' emotions. We think it could be the case that this is not always true for women. In other words, being higher in social class may not lead to increased control and independence in women the same way it does in men. It may also be the case that women have evolved to be attuned to other peoples' thoughts and emotions as a way of protecting themselves and their children. In other words, being attentive to others' emotions is important for women regardless of what social class they belong to. We need to conduct more research to find out which of these explanations is more likely.

While we don't have all the answers, this research does tell us one thing: factors like gender and social class don't necessarily shape social abilities on their own. Instead, we should be thinking about how different parts of one's identity intersect to influence accuracy in reading others' emotions.

For Further Reading

Brener, S. A., Frankenhuis, W. E., Young, E. S., & Ellis, B. J. (2023). Social class, sex, and the ability to recognize emotions: The main effect is in the interaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231159775

Dietze, P., & Knowles, E. D. (2021). Social class predicts emotion perception and perspective-taking performance in adults. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 47(1), 42-56. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220914116

Fendinger, N. J., Dietze, P., & Knowles, E. D. (2023). Beyond cognitive deficits: how social class shapes social cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(6), 528-538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2023.03.004

Susan Brener is a PhD student in developmental psychology at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on how various types of stress are related to social cognition.