Question

List and describe some behavioral sex differences that you have noticed between boys and girls. What causes girls and boys to choose different toys? Do you think that the sex differences you have noted arise from biological causes or are learned? How would you go about establishing your opinions as fact?

Answer 1

There are always differences between boy and a girl as early as one of two years of age.

1) Boys have more problematic behaviour than girls. Boys are more destructive and aggressive than girls. Girls showcaregiving behaviours (helping when someone is hurt, for instance).

2) Girls tend to be engaged better in conversation with other people while boys tend to pay little to no attention when other speak to them.

3) Boys show more fearless nature than girls when doing anything that may sometime prove little dangerous when done or risky activity, like climbing a tree.

The cause of why boys and girls choose different toys is not of gender socialisation impact or encouraged by their peers and parents as believed traditionally but it is due to biological origin like genetically or hormonally induced.

In 2002, Gerianne M. Alexander of Texas A&M University and Melissa Hines of City University in London stunned the scientific world by showing that vervet monkeys showed the same sex-typical toy preferences as humans. In an incredibly ingenious study, published in Evolution and Human Behavior, Alexander and Hines gave two stereotypically masculine toys (a ball and a police car), two stereotypically feminine toys (a soft doll and a cooking pot), and two neutral toys (a picture book and a stuffed dog) to 44 male and 44 female vervet monkeys. They then assessed the monkeys’ preference for each toy by measuring how much time they spent with each. Their data demonstrated that male vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the masculine toys, and the female vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the feminine toys. The two sexes did not differ in their preference for the neutral toys.