We frequently write and read about the differences in how boys and girls relate to each other, how they talk, and the quality of their friendships.
Here's an interesting article I found in a women's website column, which talks about why and how these differences might develop:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/05/17/boys_and_chi...
What do you think?
Thinking back to my own childhood, I can remember some group play, but mostly I remember individual friendships, which were mostly one-on-one and personal/personable relationships of equals.
Comments
Doesn't ring true at all.
One really big give away is the rpeference for pictures of groups versus individuals at the age of six months? Most babies that age are unable to interpret pictures, in fact they are only developing colour awareness. Typically ability to recognise people in photographs was not achieved until about 2-3 years of age. These days it does happen earlier due to television and computers. But not at six months!
Fact that you don't remember
Fact that you don't remember it, does not mean that you were not able to differentiate group of people from single people on picture when you were 6 month old.
It's just the fact that most of us are wired to forget anything that happened before about 5-7 y.o. But some retain earlier memories. I remember watching Mighty Mouse cartoon on TV and still remember most of settings and images. Last time it was shown on TV where I live was 40+ years ago and I was not older than 18 month at the time. I also have some memories of as early as 1 to 6 month of age but they are quite nasty as main memory was that I was extremely hot. Which stands to reason, as I was born during one of the hottest summers and long before air conditioners in every house. :-)
From my encounters with babies, they are quite good at tracking faces, sometimes as early as 1 month old. Also often you can see that they like some people and dislike other, certainly they recognize and distinguish their parents.
Babies are extremely smart. Just very inexperienced. Just imagine learning foreign language while being able to cry or not to cry as the only one way to signal anything! :-)
It's not about remembering.
It's not about remembering. It is a fact observed by others in case of children and it does happen in adults who had their vision restored after many years (e.g. cataracts). Some people with damage to occipital lobe will have functional vision of real life objects yet despite fairly normal IQ will not be able to interpret a picture. Interpretation of a picture is an acquired skill.
Not as such.
When I had first encountered interpretation of the picture it was the shocking experience. Three years since I've started reading everything. I've already had gone through Tolkien's "Hobbit" three or four times, I've already read through all of the fairy tales in the house (and some were academic editions of fairy tales intended for scientific work). And then I had trouble with picture interpretation: What to interprete? It is all there in the picture! Are you blind?
And yes, I have quite good memory of the house we lived till I was about 4 month old. And I can draw you a plan of the stairs and corridors of the building where we lived next year. :-)
So it is one thing when observed, but actually it's more the problem with feedback, motor reactions and interest. Babies just have different interests from the researchers :-) And they have only one actual feedback channel during first year - crying if something is wrong.
More than one channel
Actually, babies have more than one. One that I recall reading about is how long they will pay visual attention to an object - the longer they stare, the more they are interested. And anyone who has interacted or watched interactions with a baby knows about facial expressions. I can tell the difference between a eyes-screwed-shut grimace and a wide-eyed smile.
Once they have some motor control, they get more channels.
Maybe even sign language.
I'm just not ready to face the day unless I've been a pedantic f___ someplace.
Ellen, 22nd level Necromancer of Threads
Problem is...
99% of parents are only aware of this one feedback channel (screaming on the top of the lungs) at least till baby's wedding... Sometimes having babies helps babies to be promoted to children... but not every time :-)
And yes, I _know_ that babies can understand humor as early as 8 month old. At least I was laughing at right spots at that age :-)
Pippa, I too hung out mostly
Pippa, I too hung out mostly with one other friend. Group time was occasional and involved both sexes. I usually found one good friend and as for making myself heard, that didn't happen I was mostly a quiet child.
Funny thing is, I also have
Funny thing is, I also have trouble communicating in groups of people for as long as I can remember. Not counting times when I was very young and girls allowed me to play house with them. :-)
ummm
I was never a team sports person. I did play on my eighth grade softball and basketball teams, but only because my school was so small that if all the boys didn't play, there weren't enough kids to make a team. The closest thing to "group play" I got involved in was boy scouts and I didn't fit in well there either. I never aspired to high rank. I achieved "First Class Scout" and though I had a lot of the skills to get the merit badges to advance I never felt the urge. I probably wouldn't have even gotten beyond Tenderfoot if the guys didn't pressure me into it.
My usual play involved one or maybe, on occasion, two (brothers usually) friends at a time. As often as not, I chose to play with girls. So, the question is, did I develop a feminine nature because of that, or was that a result of my feminine nature???
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
This theory of gender
This theory of gender differences has been shopped around since the '50s. It's crippled by the chicken/egg problem: do boys naturally want to play in groups/competitively, or do they learn to become competitive because they play in competitive groups. There are a ton of driven, competitive girls out there playing every team sport from netball to hockey to rugby, too, confounding the question.
I played sandlot baseball and touch football when I was little, and so did most of the girls in the neighborhood, though almost ALL the boys did. I also played double-dutch, jacks and hopscotch. I turned out just as the studies would predict: oh, wait! They have no predictive validity!! LOL
Sex Differences Redux
I'm tempted to repost a comment I made on another blog, but here's a link instead: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/44415/amygdala-posible-cl... .
TLDR: Sex differences studies are completely unreliable.
-- Jane
Men Hunted in groups...
///Men hunted in groups, and so they had to learn to get along quickly in a bunch, and this quality was supposedly bred into men through natural selection (maybe you got picked off by a lion if you didn’t bond with the group). ///
Yep, all those movies where a group is being attacked by some creature, it's always the girls running off on their own in their underwear that get picked off first.
People say, "You don't know what you had until it's gone." Very true, but also equally true is, "You don't know what you've been missing until is arrives."
It looks like they got that
It looks like they got that part right, at least according to the movies. :P
It's always the guy with the attitude who doesn't get along and doesn't believe anything is really happening that gets taken down after the girl in her underwear.