Girls, Boys, and Cooperation

One of my guy friends is in the marine corps and he is always telling me about his buddies who he trains with and how well everyone gets along. Another one of my guy friends just moved into a new apartment with random roommates and they are all getting along swimmingly. On the other hand, I’m seeing a lot of my girl friends who are living with other girls are starting to clash. I’m wondering if there’s a correlation between how well female and male young adult cooperate with the same gender. Before anything, I want to clarify that the people I’ve referenced above are NOT examples of this phenomenon since they all are different ages, have different personalities and are in different living situations.

I knew that a behavioral study like this would be difficult since cooperation can be defined in different ways. I came across one interesting article that suggested that attitudes shared among genders are influenced by media. Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and Dana Mastro, associate professor at the University of Arizona, argued that exposure to teen movies influences gender beliefs and attitudes among young adults. The study conducted two experiments.

The first experiment sampled 20 teen movies released between 1995 and 2005. Several undergraduate students viewed each movie and were assigned as coders to examine character genders, character roles, and character race. They noted socially aggressive behavior (defined as the use of indirect aggression to damage another’s status or self-esteem such a s bullying tactics, private humiliation, or other malicious acts) and socially cooperative behavior (defined as cooperative and inclusive behaviors that fostered a supportive environment) of the primary and secondary film characters. 139 characters were identified. These results showed that female characters were more likely to be portrayed participating in socially aggressive behaviors than the male characters of teen movies.

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The researchers followed up this study with another experiment that aimed to investigate the influences these teen movies have on gender-related beliefs and attitudes. 135 undergraduate students ( 87 female and 48 male) were chosen to participate in the experiment. The students were shown a list of teen movies and asked to record how many of the films they had seen the films, if they liked them, if you identified with any of the characters, and various opinionated true or false questions. The results showed that “…increases in viewing teen movies as well as greater affinity with the characters in teen movies each were associated with more unfavorable evaluations of females’ interactions in their friendships. Similarly, significant direct effect of teen movie viewing and affinity with characters in teen movies were found for attitudes regarding the role of women in society.”

This study was focusing more on how teen movies effect interactions and attitudes among same gendered young adults. While this study makes for a compelling read, and they are very thorough is their research, to me it seems that media (specifically teen movies) is only one, small component of cooperation attitudes formed among young adults.

Other sources: Social_Development

2 thoughts on “Girls, Boys, and Cooperation

  1. Reid Baker

    I feel as if guys get along better with their other guy roommates because they aren’t afraid to communicate how they feel and set boundaries so they don’t cross a line. Back home, hanging out with my guy friends is a lot easier and less stressful than hanging out with my girls that are friends. Here at Penn State though, I feel the opposite is happening and the girls are getting along better than the guys are.

  2. Jordan Charles Eisenstat

    I see the exact same thing you are seeing when it comes to guys and girls getting along and making new friends within their sex. For example, the guys on my floor instantly gelled almost from the beginning. It’s just a lot easier to get along with others guys, because in my opinion guys are a lot less picky when it comes to choosing friends. However, since I live on a co-ed floor, I’ve seem the exact opposite with the girls on our floor. They hang out in groups of twos, usually with their roommates, who they seemed to already have had a prior relationship with before coming here. I think it has a lot to do with girls having their ideal “best friend” in their head, and tend to clash with anyone who may not be that person

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