In general, people generate an emotion they can regulate to help themselves through a strong emotion they cannot effectively regulate.

Men who develop the ability to regulate sadness directly won’t need to cover it with anger, to themselves or to others.

We learn about the emotions we are feeling and how to regulate them from others, especially our caregivers.

So I’m reminded of studies showing bias interpreting a face as showing anger when it’s suggested the face is male, and bias toward scared, sad, or neutral when female.

So when a little boy is upset and his caregivers, teachers, etc are more likely to see that upset as anger than sadness, his chances of having someone name it, reflect it back in their own and & help him regulate it as sadness are lower than him being taught that it’s anger.

The reverse then is also true for girls