Re:Brain connections may explain why girls mature faster
by smtddr on Wednesday January 01, 2014 @03:33PM
(#6996471)
>>female vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the feminine toys (a picture book and a stuffed dog).
I don't know what to say about using monkeys for this kind of study, but I will say that I never thought of stuffed dogs & picture books as feminine. Those sound like male/neutral to me!
Re:Brain connections may explain why girls mature faster
by popularopinion on Wednesday January 01, 2014 @03:38PM
(#6996487)
You are correct, I looked up the original study and found that the picture book and the furry dog were actually the neutral condition toys. The feminine toys were a doll and a red cooking pan. Thank you for pointing this out, I will edit my post.
It turns out the answer is yes. In 2002, a (very influential) study was performed on vervet monkeys and found that male vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the masculine toys (i.e. a ball and a police car), and the female vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the feminine toys (a doll and a red pan). There wasn't much difference in preference for the neutral toys.
One study is not enough to show such a trend. So in 2008, the study was repeated a different species of monkey (rehesus) and a different set of toys. The authors found the same results: males preferred stereotypically male toys, and females preferred stereotypically female toys.
So we have two studies in two species of primates that found that males prefer "masculine" toys, and females prefer "feminine" toys. From this, it is fairly plausible that innate differences in toy preference will show up in humans as well.
Sources:
Vervet Study: http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(02)00107-1/fullt...
Rhesus Study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/
Summary of both studies: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundament...