Assessing children's perceptions of prosocial and antisocial peer behaviour

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Did boys and girls differ in how they saw other children's behaviour?

The researchers found some similarities between the boys and girls in this study in how they saw the other children's behaviours. Both genders:

thought physical abuse was the province of boys, although 20% of the antisocial nominations made by both boys and girls were directed at girls;
were more likely to nominate boys as verbal aggressors (teasing, name-calling etc) although this behaviour is often believed to be a female form of aggression; and
made more prosocial nominations than antisocial or victim nominations.

The researchers found several differences between boys and girls:

boys nominated physical and verbal abuse behaviours the same number of times - in both cases nominating other boys four times more often than girls;
girls nominated more verbal than physical abuse behaviours in other children and nominated boys twice as often as girls;
boys were equally likely to nominate either other boys or girls as behaving prosocially (caring, sharing, helping etc) however, girls saw other girls as twice as likely as boys to behave in a prosocial manner; and
there was a clear gender effect for victim nominations - both genders were more likely to nominate a child of the same sex as themselves.

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Research Home Themes \| Find digests \| About the digests resources glossary researchers contact TRIPS Introduction What did the researchers want to find out? What categories of behaviour did the researchers identify? What judgements did the children make of their peers' behaviour? Did boys and girls differ in how they saw other children's behaviour? How was the study designed? What are the implications of the study? Where can I find out more? Send us your feedback Collated digests To view/remove/add notes and save your collated digests click here Get Word Reader Assessing children's perceptions of prosocial and antisocial peer behaviour This digest found in Gender Inclusion Pupil Voice Send to a friend Word doc 50KB Printer friendly Collate for later Did boys and girls differ in how they saw other children's behaviour? The researchers found some similarities between the boys and girls in this study in how they saw the other children's behaviours. Both genders: thought physical abuse was the province of boys, although 20% of the antisocial nominations made by both boys and girls were directed at girls; were more likely to nominate boys as verbal aggressors (teasing, name-calling etc) although this behaviour is often believed to be a female form of aggression; and made more prosocial nominations than antisocial or victim nominations. The researchers found several differences between boys and girls: boys nominated physical and verbal abuse behaviours the same number of times - in both cases nominating other boys four times more often than girls; girls nominated more verbal than physical abuse behaviours in other children and nominated boys twice as often as girls; boys were equally likely to nominate either other boys or girls as behaving prosocially (caring, sharing, helping etc) however, girls saw other girls as twice as likely as boys to behave in a prosocial manner; and there was a clear gender effect for victim nominations - both genders were more likely to nominate a child of the same sex as themselves.