The purpose of the study was to evaluate the relationship between state-anxiety and affective expressions in written stories, and receiving or withholding a sad movie and receiving permission to cry in appropriate contexts. Subjects consisted of 124 undergraduate males and females, as well as 34 older males, members of 5 midwestern, nationally affiliated civic clubs.Two independent measures, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Form X-1 Only, and selected plates of the Thematic Apperception Tests, were utilized. Four null hypotheses were tested by using separate one-way analysis of variance with an alpha level of .05 for rejection.Findings1. Older males scored significantly higher on state anxiety following a sad movie and cry behaviors than undergraduate males.2. Older males scored significantly higher on post-test measures of state-anxiety than on pre-test measures following a sad movie and cry behaviors.3. Undergraduate males are significantly more skilled in expressing affect in written stories than are older males.4. Older males showed significantly greater gains from pre- to post- test scores in affective skills. 5. Performances of females in the study revealed that, in contrast to male scores, females performed at a significantly higher level in affective expression skills than either of the two male groups. Further, female state-anxiety scores were significantly lower in a sad movie only context, than were their scores for other treatment modalitities.Conclusions1. A target population of older males described in the literature as stereotypically rigid and emotionally constricted, are more emotionally expressive following a sad movie and self-permitted cry behaviors.2. Undergraduate males are much closer to female levels of affective skills than are older males.