Men’s Emotional Sensitivity Begins in the Cradle

Are Men More Emotionally Sensitive Than Women?

Jacek Masłowski, a therapist and co-author of Liberating Masculinity, said something in a recent interview on YT Balans that made me pause. He claimed that boys are born more emotionally sensitive than girls — and that this difference lasts until about the eighth month of life. He did not cite specific sources, so I went looking for them.

If this is true, we are dealing with one of the most paradoxical patterns in the history of upbringing. The group that begins life with the greatest need for emotional contact grows into adults who struggle to ask for it. I turned to the research. Here is what it suggests.

The First Hours of Life

In 2007, a team from the University of Barcelona assessed the behaviour of 188 healthy newborns using the Brazelton Scale, one of the most sensitive tools for measuring infant responses. In simple terms, the test evaluates how newborns react to stimuli such as light, the human voice, or a face. The study took place between 48 and 80 hours after birth — literally in the first days of life.

What Differentiates Boys and Girls?

Girls scored higher than boys in four categories: response to the human voice, alertness, quality of alertness, and regulation of states. In other words, girls are more socially responsive from birth, better able to sustain attention, and more efficient at returning to balance.

Boys scored higher in one category: irritability — but here a higher score meant lower irritability. Girls reacted more strongly to stressful stimuli, yet also recovered more quickly. Boys reacted less, but found it harder to regulate themselves afterward.

At first glance, this does not seem to support Masłowski’s claim. And it would be reasonable to stop there. But another study goes deeper — and shifts the picture.

Where Does Men’s Emotional Sensitivity Come From?

Imagine a simple situation. A mother plays with her infant — smiling, responding, maintaining contact. Then, without warning, she becomes still. She looks at the child, but her face is expressionless. No smile, no reaction. For 2 minutes.

For an infant, this is something like an emotional shock.

This is the still-face procedure, one of the most well-known tools in developmental psychology. In 1999, Edward Tronick and Katherine Weinberg used it to observe 81 six-month-old infants.

How the Still-Face Procedure Works

When faced with a still, unresponsive parent, the child first tries to restore contact — smiling, gesturing, vocalising. When that fails, withdrawal begins. And it is precisely in this moment of breakdown that boys and girls diverge.

Boys showed greater difficulty maintaining emotional balance — not only during the still-face phase, but across the entire experiment. They expressed more difficult emotions: anger, frustration, protest. They also sought contact more actively — looking at the mother more often, smiling more, vocalising more. They were more socially oriented.

Girls, by contrast, shifted strategies more quickly. They turned their attention to the environment, engaging with objects around them. The researchers described this as self-regulation through objects — girls found their own way out of stress.

The conclusion was clear: boys have more limited capacity for self-regulation and rely more heavily on external emotional support from caregivers. They are more dependent on the relationship.

This forms a credible foundation for Masłowski’s claim.

Science Prefers Nuance

Before concluding that “Masłowski was right,” one important clarification is necessary.

In 2009, Judi Mesman and her colleagues at Leiden University published a meta-analysis covering more than 80 studies using the still-face procedure. Their conclusion was straightforward: the results are inconsistent.

Some studies find more negative emotional responses in boys, others in girls, and some find no difference at all. The effect of gender is not strong or consistent. As is often the case in psychology, it depends on context, age, parental behaviour, and methodology.

What does this mean for the idea of men’s emotional sensitivity?

We cannot say: science has proven that boys are more emotionally sensitive. We can say: there is a strong line of research showing that male infants often have greater difficulty with self-regulation and depend more on external emotional support.

That is a meaningful distinction.

What Fathers Do to Men’s Emotional Sensitivity

This is the most important moment in the story. Even if we accept the more cautious version — that boys begin life with a greater need for emotional support — what does culture do with it?

We may think we know the answer. But data shows something more subtle.

In 2005, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin observed 60 children and their parents at ages 4 and 6. Families were recorded during a structured play task designed to evoke emotions such as joy, frustration, and disappointment.

Researchers coded children’s emotional expressions and the responses of parents — what adults paid attention to.

The results were clear. Girls expressed more sadness and fear, and fathers paid more attention to those emotions in daughters than in sons. In contrast, fathers paid more attention to anger and high-energy positive emotions in sons than in daughters. Interestingly, mothers’ responses were not statistically significant.The father emerged as the key agent of this subtle socialisation.

The mechanism is simple and requires no ill intent. Sons learn that their anger is noticed, while sadness and fear are ignored. Daughters learn the opposite. Fathers do not explicitly reward anger or punish sadness. They simply respond more often when the emotion aligns with gender expectations — and less when it does not.

And here the loop closes. A boy who needs more external emotional regulation, more contact, more responsiveness, learns very early that these needs are inappropriate. That they should be suppressed. That sadness, helplessness, or fear signal weakness. So he hides them — and carries them, hidden, throughout his life.

Three Dimensions of Men’s Emotional Sensitivity

Masłowski said something else in that same interview that takes on new meaning in light of this research. Working with men’s emotions, he argued, is not about learning something new — it is archaeology. Digging for something that was once on the surface.

The issue is not simply that men are sensitive and culture damages them. That would be too simplistic. Rather, men may begin life with a biologically grounded need for emotional connection and external regulation — and socialisation gradually silences that need.

As a result, a man who once required more emotional support as an infant may grow into an adult who cannot ask for it — or accept it when it is offered.

So, are men more emotionally sensitive than women? The honest answer is: it depends on what we mean by sensitivity.

If sensitivity means the ability to reflect on emotions, to name them, to navigate relationships — girls show an early advantage. They are more socially attuned and regulate themselves more effectively.

If sensitivity means a need for external emotional support and difficulty returning to balance independently — boys show greater need.

But there is a third dimension: buried sensitivity. A need that exists, but was never allowed to surface. This dimension of men’s emotional sensitivity is being discussed more openly today — and rightly so. A boy who is not allowed to feel sadness does not become stronger. He simply becomes more alone.

Read this article in Polish: Męska wrażliwość zaczyna się już w kołysce. I różni się od kobiecej