Boys and Girls on the Playground: Sex Differences in Social Development Are Not Stable across Early Childhood

Stéphanie Barbu,Gaïd Le Maner-Idrissi,Guénaël Cabanes,Malcolm Semple

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016407

Abstract

Sex differences in human social behaviors and abilities have long been a question of public and scientific interest. Females are usually assumed to be more socially oriented and skilful than males. However, despite an extensive literature, the very existence of sex differences remains a matter of discussion while some studies found no sex differences whereas others reported differences that were either congruent or not with gender stereotypes. Moreover, the magnitude, consistency and stability across time of the differences remain an open question, especially during childhood. As play provides an excellent window into children's social development, we investigated whether and how sex differences change in social play across early childhood. Following a cross-sectional design, 164 children aged from 2 to 6 years old, divided into four age groups, were observed during outdoor free play at nursery school. We showed that sex differences are not stable over time evidencing a developmental gap between girls and boys. Social and structured forms of play emerge systematically earlier in girls than in boys leading to subsequent sex differences in favor of girls at some ages, successively in associative play at 3–4 years, cooperative play at 4–5 years, and social interactions with peers at 5–6 years. Preschool boys also display more solitary play than preschool girls, especially when young. Nevertheless, while boys catch up and girls move on towards more complex play, sex differences in social play patterns are reversed in favor of boys at the following ages, such as in associative play at 4–5 years and cooperative play at 5–6 years. This developmental perspective contributes to resolve apparent discrepancies between single-snapshot studies. A better understanding of the dynamics of sex differences in typical social development should also provide insights into atypical social developments which exhibit sex differences in prevalence, such as autism.

Highlights

Human sex differences are a perennially hot topic that grips the public interest, but that has triggered a great deal of scientific focus from biological to social sciences
We found significant effects of age for all the social categories: interactions with adults, unoccupied and onlooker behavior, solitary and parallel play decreased, while associative play, cooperative play and interactions with peers increased over the preschool years
From the age of 4–5 years, children’s sociality changed abruptly, notably associative play predominated at 4–5 years and cooperative play predominated at 5–6 years

Summary

Introduction

Human sex differences are a perennially hot topic that grips the public interest, but that has triggered a great deal of scientific focus from biological to social sciences. Perhaps most striking, paradoxes of gender studies is that, despite decades of concerted efforts, the very existence of sex differences remains debated [1,2,3]. Discrepancies between studies undoubtedly feed the continuing debate. Some studies found no sex differences whereas others reported differences that were either congruent or not with gender stereotypes. Such discrepancies are especially marked in childhood. Between-sex differences appear during a limited window of development and even change direction with age. Our findings contribute to resolve the puzzling null or contradictory conclusions drawn from limited age-range samples or collapsed agegroups and raise important methodological issues such as the representativeness of samples in studies. Developmental studies are especially needed in order to go beyond the current debate

Methods

Results

Conclusion