The paper concludes: “Mediation analyses revealed that participants drew different inferences from male versus female anger, which created a gender gap in influence during group deliberation.

“The current study has implications for group decisions in general, and jury deliberations in particular, by suggesting that expressing anger might lead men to gain influence, but women to lose influence over others (even when making identical arguments). These diverging consequences might result in women potentially having less influence on societally important decisions than men, such as jury verdicts.”

Just as actress Jennifer Lawrence worried that fighting for a wage on par with that of her male colleagues would have her labelled difficult to work with, or a “spoiled brat” (as the leaked Sony emails revealed Angelina Jolie was dubbed), so too do many women in everyday situations feel the same sense of unfairness at potentially being thought of as emotional and hysterical for being passionate or angry.

Funnily enough, being taken less seriously makes one feel quite angry. Still, as Lawrence said, “I'm over trying to find the ‘adorable’ way to state my opinion and still be likable”.

Images: Rex Features, Thinkstock

When women display this trait they are taken less seriously, yet for men it's the opposite