Phenomenal Consciousness in Females and Access Consciousness in Males Are More Closely Associated with Emotions

Phenomenal consciousness (self-focused awareness, measured as agency) and access consciousness (meaning in life) relate differently to emotions in females and males. In females, phenomenal consciousness is more closely tied to emotions; in males, access consciousness is. Specifically, females with higher agency are more prone to disgust, while males with greater meaning in life are less likely to experience disgust. These sex-differentiated links may inform understanding of emotion regulation and coping strategies for external risks.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Building on the Higher-Order Theory of Emotion, this study investigates how self-focused phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness shape emotions. We operationalized these two conscious experiences as agency and meaning in life, respectively. These constructs were extracted from participants’ written texts using two natural language processing techniques: coreference resolution and distributed dictionary representation. A network modeling approach was then employed to assess their statistical associations with concurrently reported emotions. The results revealed that phenomenal consciousness in females and access consciousness in males are more closely associated with emotions. Specifically, this study identified a sex-differentiated link between consciousness and the emotion of disgust: females with higher levels of agency are more prone to experiencing disgust, whereas males who perceive a greater meaning in life are less likely to have their disgust response activated. This finding may illuminate the differentiated emotion regulation and coping strategies used by females and males when responding to external risks or discomfort. Future research should extend these results through cross-cultural validation.